Community Services

Community Law Programs are an important channel for pro bono legal services. Attorneys and paralegals at Heller Ehrman provide ongoing legal representation and counseling to and through a wide array of community and public interests programs.

EASTSIDE ARTS ALLIANCE

Since 2004, Heller Ehrman has represented the EastSide Arts Alliance (EastSide) in its joint venture with Affordable Housing Associates (AHA) for the development and operation of the Eastside Cultural Center in Oakland.  EastSide is a collective of artists and community workers based in the San Antonio neighborhood, one of Oakland’s most ethnically diverse districts.  Started in 1999, EastSide provides free multi-media art workshops to neighborhood youth, presents music, dance, theatre, spoken word, video and town hall events, and organizes the annual Malcolm X JazzArts Festival in San Antonio Park.

In March, EastSide and the San Antonio community celebrated the Cultural Center’s ribbon-cutting ceremony.  The Cultural Center includes: a new state of the art cultural arts center, which will promote civic engagement and community pride, hold after-school programs for at-risk teenagers and provide a venue for safe, vibrant nighttime activities; affordable housing on the upper levels, comprised of studio and one-bedroom apartments; and a signature model of micro-enterprise/small business development that incorporates two storefront, community-based businesses.  

NEW YORK OFFICE EXPANDS RELATIONSHIP WITH PUBLICOLOR

Multiple times a year, Heller Ehrman employees from the New York office (including summer associates) volunteer a Saturday to paint alongside New York’s most at-risk middle and high school students in an effort to brighten their classrooms while providing them with an opportunity to learn about life and employment skills.  Additionally, Jaime Santos began participating in Publicolor’s new Lifeskills Workshops.  In this after-school program, speakers like Jamie lead topical discussions ranging from personal and professional development to exploration of career choices.

Publicolor is a not-for-profit organization that uses the power of color and collaboration to engage at-risk students in their education by involving them in painting the public spaces of their neglected schools and nearby community sites.  Founded by industrial designer Ruth Lande Shuman in 1996, Publicolor uses design to underscore the importance of education while transforming schools into vibrant learning environments.  Not only do students learn a marketable skill, but they also develop excellent work habits that are transferable to homework and the world of work. Publicolor also provides college counseling, summer job placement, tutoring and mentoring.  In recent years Publicolor has begun supporting students in their efforts to prepare effectively for a college education and to manage the transition to college.

Since its founding, Publicolor has transformed more than eighty dreary, depressing New York City school buildings, thereby impacting the daily lives of 200,000 students and teachers.  Transformed schools report increased attendance, lower rates of violence and graffiti, and a greater sense of pride and ownership among students.  Similarly, the program has helped transform over 100 run-down community sites, including homeless shelters, senior centers, police precinct houses and neighborhood health clinics.

PROVIDING PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT FOR PUBLIC INTEREST LAWYERS

Heller Ehrman has a long tradition of support for legal services organizations and for public-interest lawyers serving low-income clients and “the public good.” One of the most successful examples of this support is the in-house litigation-training program in San Francisco. For many years, the firm has leveraged the basic training offered to our entering associates by inviting Bay Area public-interest lawyers to participate. The word has continued to spread, and this year 43 legal services advocates (and a few legal assistants) attended our training. These junior lawyers learned alongside our 14 new associates and a number of Heller Ehrman legal assistants who also attend these sessions. The legal services lawyers come from several surrounding counties and from agencies that practice traditional poverty law, civil rights and racial justice law, youth law and environmental law, among others. Heller Ehrman associates and these public-interest lawyers have the chance to make connections that will continue for many years.

In addition, in April, four legal services lawyers took part in the intensive firmwide Trial Advocacy Program presented in New York and San Francisco. These young attorneys joined us from the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law in Washington, D.C.; the Brennan Center for Justice in New York City; the Legal Aid Society of Los Angeles County; and the Homeless Advocacy Project in San Francisco. This is another important way in which Heller Ehrman lawyers are able to support the public interest bar and the low-income clients whom they and we represent.

ANIMAL RESCUE IN SAN FRANCISCO

Mickaboo (www.mickaboo.com) is a non-profit organization in the Bar area that rescues cockatoos, cockatiels, budgies, lovebirds, parakeets, canaries, finches and other neglected, abused, sick or injured birds. The unpaid volunteers who run Mickaboo help rehabilitate these birds, then places them in safe and caring foster homes until permanent, adoptive homes can be found. A Heller Ehrman attorney in the San Francisco office helps Mickaboo draft volunteer, foster-parent and adoption contracts; addresses various corporate governance, charitable contribution and tax issues; advises on the organization’s exposure to tort liability and has even helped recover birds that certain volunteers had endangered or refused to relinquish—in one case going so far as to file a replevin action in Oregon Circuit Court. Heller Ehrman’s work on behalf of Mickaboo has helped the organization focus on more effectively fulfilling its mission, and it has provided rewarding opportunities for Heller Ehrman to contribute to the community.

COUNSELING NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATIONS

All Heller Ehrman offices have helped to incorporate and provide counseling to numerous non-profit organizations, including Shelter Partnership in Los Angeles, the Orson Wells Institute, The Dante Allegheri Society, The Raven Chronicles (a literary journal for writers of color), The National Network For Women in Prison, The Fremont Public Association (a Seattle low-income housing provider), and MPAC (the local public access and community television channel in Los Gatos).

LEGAL SERVICES FOR ENTREPRENEURS

Attorneys in our Silicon Valley office helped establish Legal Services for Entrepreneurs, a Bay Area project that works with community economic development organizations and assists low income and minority clients to launch businesses in disadvantaged neighborhoods.

STAFFING DROP-IN CLINICS

Our San Francisco attorneys and paralegals take cases through the Bar Association's Volunteer Legal Services Program and also regularly staff the drop-in clinic sponsored by the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights. These programs are among the most broad-based and effective in the city for delivering legal services to the poor. Attorneys and paralegals handle landlord-tenant, creditor-debtor, political asylum, and government benefits cases, along with a sprinkling of almost every other kind of case imaginable.

SAN DIEGO VOLUNTEER LAWYERS ASSOCIATION

In San Diego, our attorneys and paralegals accept cases from the San Diego Volunteer Lawyer Program to provide legal services to many poor and indigent residents of San Diego County, including those with AIDS/HIV infection, victims of domestic violence, and persons seeking political asylum.

PUBLIC INTEREST AND LEGAL AID BOARDS AND COMMITTEES

Heller Ehrman attorneys also participate on the boards, steering, and executive committees of major legal aid groups. The firm is deeply committed to the staffing, promotion and funding of public interest law activities, including VLSP, the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area, The King's County Bar Association Community Legal Services Committee, Bet Tzedek (House of Justice) Legal Services in Los Angeles, the ACLU, Public Counsel (the pro bono office of the Los Angeles and Beverly Hills Bar Associations), the San Francisco Legal Aid Society, the Berkeley Law Foundation, the Washington Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights, and the National Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights.  Members of the firm also have been involved in managing California and Washington State Bar programs that provide funding for legal services projects derived from interest on lawyers' trust accounts (IOLTA), as well as serving on the ABA Commission on IOLTA.