Alaska Legal Services and Civil Legal Aid: When Time Means More Than Money
There’s an old cliché that time is money, and nowhere is that saying more apt than in the American legal system, where access to justice so often depends on a person’s financial resources.
That’s why I support Alaska Legal Services by donating my time as a volunteer attorney.
Alaska Legal Services is a fantastic civil legal aid organization that gave me my first introduction to Alaska's legal community more than a decade ago. The lawyers who work there have relinquished higher-paying jobs and dedicated their careers to ensuring that the civil justice system is accessible to all Alaskans, regardless of their income.
Alaska Legal Services advocates tirelessly for its clients to ensure that they don’t lose custody of their children, get evicted from their homes, or become the victims of predatory lending practices simply because they’re poor. There are innumerable problems that correlate directly with poverty, but because of Alaska Legal Services, substandard access to justice isn’t always one of them.
I don’t work for Alaska Legal Services, but I’ve occasionally taken their cases as a form of volunteer support. Putting my time, energy, and expertise as a lawyer into a court case is more meaningful than writing a check, because it creates memorable relationships with clients and achieves visible, concrete, and direct results.
Through Alaska Legal Services, I’ve helped a same-sex couple dissolve their partnership; a teenager retrieve a large sum of money she was owed from her estranged father; and numerous couples secure fair divisions of property and custody of their children in divorce and custody cases.
I feel a moral obligation to do this work, because in my view, good representation in the legal system is like good healthcare in the health care system: It shouldn't be for sale. Or at least, it should be available to everyone on equal footing. After all, justice in America is a public right—not a private commodity.
When I volunteer for Alaska Legal Services, my time is worth more than money: It’s worth greater equity and access to a core branch of our democracy.
And you can’t put a price tag on that.
Review from #MyGivingStory