Every year, the Legal Services Corporation provides financial support to a select number of non-profit organizations that create pro bono and legal aid projects across the country. Last year, Illinois’s very own Prairie State Legal Services formulated a project that was selected as a recipient of one of the grants that the Legal Services Corporation handpicks to fund each year.
The central Illinois non-profit organization’s “Borderless Pro Bono Project” matches lawyers in the Illinois legal community with clients in need of access to justice throughout the entire state. These volunteer attorneys then donate their time and knowledge providing free and/or affordable legal assistance to residents in more rural communities across Illinois, especially those that do not have enough attorneys to create a local program in the designated area.
The project’s volunteers can offer both advice and temporary legal services (not in court or extended representation) to eligible unmarried parents on matters pertaining to paternity, custody, visitation, and child support issues in the family law arena.
Are you itching to give back to a great cause that is close to home? To get involved with the project during Pro Bono Week or to simply learn more about the program, please visit the Pro Bono Without Borders project website.