Tuesday, September 20, 2011

South Carolina Seeks #Volunteer Lawyers for Legal Assistance to Military Personnel Update

Since my first post on the South Carolina Bar Association's Legal Assistance to Military Personnel efforts, that organization seems to have upgraded and improved the resources they make available to servicemembers and families, and is recruiting lawyers to serve them. From its website:
"Military service often affects a service member’s ability to obtain legal counsel or representation for many legal issues. One of the biggest hindrances for these service members is the expense of private legal representation. After September 11, 2001, the ABA urged state bar organizations to take steps to provide reduced fee or free legal services to military personnel who were facing deployment/activation. The South Carolina Bar responded by creating Legal Assistance for Military Personnel (LAMP) in 2001 as an effort to meet this need by pairing qualifying military personnel with volunteer lawyers. Nine years later, the need for legal services in the military community remains high. The South Carolina Bar Pro Bono Program is now reviving the program and recruiting a fresh force of volunteer attorneys.

The South Carolina Bar’s program seeks to provide free or reduced fee legal services to active military personnel who are stationed in South Carolina or whose case is related to South Carolina in some way. Military service frequently places service members in unique and difficult legal situations. While active duty military personnel can obtain certain legal services for free from military lawyers, due to the limited resources of these departments many legal needs of service members are unmet. For example: a service member may need help getting out of a residential lease when he is called up for active duty; a service member may need to be present at a court hearing but is instead across the country or in another part of the world; a service member could need information about how a civil or criminal judgment against him could affect his military service, etc.

LAMP seeks to recruit volunteer attorneys who practice in several different areas of law including: Wills/Trusts, Powers of Attorney, Landlord/Tenant, Family, Employment, Probate, Guardianship/Adoption, Military, and Consumer. LAMP is an important and effective way for South Carolina’s legal community to serve those who willingly sacrifice so much for our country.
If you are a servicemember in or connected to South Carolina seeking legal aid, please fill out the handy form you'll find at http://ww2.scbar.org/public_services/legal_assistance_for_military_personnel/. You can also find some resources at first post on SCBA's LAMP program
If you are an attorney interested in helping these people out, contact  Kelly Teague at (803)799-6653, ext. 118 or kelly.teague@scbar.org

See also

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