Pro Bono Month highlights legal aid work and encourages attorneys to volunteer their services to low-income Ohioans in need of legal help.

Pro Bono Month highlights legal aid work and encourages attorneys to volunteer their services to low-income Ohioans in need of legal help.

October marks Pro Bono Month, celebrating the lawyers who donate their time to provide legal services to those who cannot afford a lawyer. Pro bono, which means “for the public good,” provides an opportunity for lawyers to get involved in offering their time and expertise to economically disadvantaged Ohioans.

"We all have a responsibility as legal professionals to help achieve access to justice for low-income people,” said Melissa LaRocco, the pro bono director for Legal Aid of Western Ohio (LAWO).

LaRocco shared her thoughts on pro bono work in the latest installment of a video series produced by the Supreme Court of Ohio’s Commission on Professionalism. In the three newest videos, she and other state legal aid leaders explain the need and ways attorneys can help fill the gap in their communities. Pro bono volunteers offer legal services to improve situations related to housing, protection from domestic violence, custody of children, as well as equitable access to government benefits.

Ohio Access to Justice Foundation executive director Angie Lloyd helps fund LAWO and other legal aid groups in the state. Prior to that role, she was as an immigration attorney. In her Professionalism Series video, she detailed one of her most memorable cases of reuniting an immigrant family separated at the border.

“The family [legally] settled in Columbus and opened a restaurant. The children, who were threatened with kidnapping, are now thriving in school,” Lloyd said.

Pro bono work also benefits community-based, nonprofit organizations that serve people in poverty. Attorney Erin Childs has spent the past eight years as executive director of the Pro Bono Partnership of Ohio. She’s recruited more than 800 volunteer corporate lawyers to use their expertise to strengthen the business foundations of local nonprofits.  

“[Pro bono] opportunities [allow attorneys] to be a part of the positive change happening in our state,” Childs said.

And it helps attorneys develop in their professional careers, offering exposure to new areas of law and reinforcing the drive for justice.

“It breathes hope. It breathes stability. It brings change,” LaRocco said.

To learn more about professionalism in the legal community, see the complete Supreme Court of Ohio Professionalism Video Series.