Robert Ambrogi Blog
Paladin, a company whose platform connects lawyers with opportunities to provide free legal help, today launched a province-wide pro bono portal for Ontario, developed in partnership with the Ontario Bar Association.
While Paladin has launched pro bono portals in 13 U.S. states, this is its first outside the U.S. The company says it plans to roll-out portals in the rest of Canada’s provinces this fall.
Similar to Paladin’s U.S. portals, the OBA portal will provide lawyers with a centralized, sortable database of real-time opportunities to serve those who might not otherwise have access to pro bono assistance. Pro Bono Ontario, the largest legal aid referrer in the region, will be the anchor NGO partner recruiting lawyer assistance.
“PBO believes every Ontarian deserves meaningful access to justice,” Kirsti McHenry, Pro Bono Ontario’s executive director, said in a statement announcing the launch. “Thanks to our dedicated roster of 1,000 volunteer lawyers, we delivered direct legal services to more than 33,000 clients last year. We’re proud to participate in this important initiative to engage even more lawyers committed to achieving 100% access to justice.”
In conjunction with Paladin’s expansion into Canada, Louis Frapporti, a partner at Gowling WLG, will join the company’s advisory board and will help establish a Canadian Advisory Board. He will working to engage and partner with social enterprise, corporate and government sectors to optimize the platform for local pro bono needs and accelerate its adoption and impact in Canada, Paladin said.
“As with every other economic sector and the legal industry generally, innovation holds the key to transformative change — as does making purpose a key element of our industry’s value proposition,” said Frapporti. “Paladin and the new partnerships it is inspiring hold enormous promise in demonstrating to the profession as a whole that ‘doing good’ can be ‘good business’.”
Frapporti’s firm, Gowling WLG, one of the largest law firms in Canada, will be piloting the adoption of Paladin to help scale its pro bono program. Paladin’s existing law firm and corporate clients that have offices in Canada will be able to expand their engagement to include Canadian volunteers.
In Canada, according to the Canadian Forum on Civil Justice, about half of all adults will experience a serious legal problem at least once over the course of a three year period. Furthermore, at a time of considerable economic insecurity, individual entrepreneurs and small businesses, particularly those from marginalized communities, are challenged in securing access to qualified lawyers to assist in the formation and growing of their ventures.
Prior to today’s launch, Paladin says, efforts to connect lawyers with pro bono opportunities in Canada were managed mostly through online forms, emails and spreadsheets. Paladin’s platform will enable volunteer opportunities to be centralized into a database that lawyers can filter by practice area, communities to serve, type of engagement, time commitment, and the ability to work remotely.
Legal services referrers will be able to post opportunities as they come in, recruit new volunteers, and ultimately serve more clients. By creating consistency in opportunity intake, the OBA and Paladin will also be able to gather important data around needs, volunteer interests, and ultimately, pro bono connections to inform better volunteer matching.
“The pro bono community in Canada is quickly advancing, and we are honored to leverage our technology to accelerate its growth across Ontario and nationwide,” said Kristen Sonday, Paladin’s cofounder and CEO. “We look forward to working closely with the OBA on a tech blueprint that we can scale to help even more individuals in need around the world get urgent legal assistance.”
Lawyers interested in providing pro bono legal services can view cases and register interest at https://app.joinpaladin.com/!/ontario-bar-association/.