- The legal help that will be given out this weekend includes help in areas like criminal law, family law, contracts, and housing.
- While the free Pro Bono clinic is open to all Tallahassee neighbors to get legal aid, it also benefits all parties involved. Including volunteers like local law students and licensed attorneys.
- Watch the video above to hear from two local attorney's on the impact of the free Pro Bono clinic.
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT
Attorneys, aspiring attorneys, and neighbors who need free legal assistance will all be in one spot this weekend. I got an in-depth look at what they help is, and how that help benefits all that are involved.
“Legal issues are things that people don’t necessarily think are a point of crisis, and that’s wrong.”
Maggie Ozarowski is an attorney in Tallahassee. She tells me neighbors where we live have real legal problems.
“You are in an incredibly difficult and distressing situation.”
Those same difficult situations are a reason why the Florida’s Second Judicial Circuit Free Legal Clinic exists. It’s happening at Nims Middle School this Saturday for neighbors living in those 32301 zip codes.
While the free Pro Bono clinic is open to all Tallahassee neighbors to get legal aid, it also benefits all parties involved. Including volunteers like local law students and licensed attorneys.
“Volunteering is doing the very thing you went to law school for. Which is helping a client that may have no idea what the next step is.”
Finding that next step for the neighbors that desperately need it requires many volunteers. Ozarowski tells me the clinic is aiming for at least 30 attorney volunteers and law students, so they also get real world experience.
“You’re giving them advice, you trying to collect the facts and the law students are sitting next to you, helping you do legal research and just watching.”
The legal help that will be given out this weekend includes help in areas like criminal law, family law, contracts, and housing.
I asked one other local attorney, Harriet W. Williams, how the hands-on experience helps aspiring lawyers and the people that need help in the process.
“You can’t trade experience for theoretical knowledge. The law student gets to see up close and personal how all of it works. As to the people who come, they have a legitimate need. We want them to know that there are persons they can access without having a million dollars or a thousand or a hundred.”
The free legal clinic in Southwest Tallahassee is made to be beneficial. I asked Ozarowski how it feels to be part of that benefit.
“I’m not sure I can verbalize how that feeling is; it is incredible!”
The free 3-hour pro bono clinic will be held at Nims Middle this Saturday and will start at 9 a.m.
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