New York Law Journal
January 27, 2014
“To further address the justice gap, we must continue to look for untapped legal resources, and the judiciary and the courts must continue to break down the barriers that hinder attorneys f rom contributing their efforts to alleviate the crisis in civil legal aid.
One such untapped resource is the population of in-house lawyers employed in New York who are licensed to practice in other states. While these out-of-state in-house attorneys of ten have decades of relevant experience and an array of applicable legal skills, in the past they have been precluded from providing legal services out of the bounds of their corporate or in-house employment. To investigate this issue, I appointed the Advisory Committee on Pro Bono Service by In-House Counsel and appointed my Court of Appeals colleague, Senior Associate Judge Victoria A. Graffeo, as chair of the Committee. The Advisory Committee worked together to recommend rule changes and strategies to enable in-house attorneys to provide pro bono legal services on behalf of the poor in New York.”