Talk Justice, an LSC Podcast: When Private Businesses Partner for Pro Bono Good—Koch and Kansas
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Carl Rauscher
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WASHINGTON– Guests from a Kansas pro bono partnership discuss how private businesses and in-house attorneys can support legal aid initiatives in their communities on the latest episode of LSC's “Talk Justice” podcast, released today. Host Lee Rawles is joined by Joy Springfield, director of pro bono services at Kansas Legal Services (KLS); Matt Ellis, chief counsel for commercial and pro bono work at Koch; and Nathan Jiwanlal, chief counsel for transaction services at Koch.
In 2017, Koch was interested in making pro bono work an organized, official part of the company, but learned that Kansas rules did not allow in-house attorneys who are licensed by outside states to provide local pro bono services, Ellis explains. Koch worked with KLS to get the rule changed, with KLS demonstrating that the demand for free legal help greatly exceeded the supply of legal aid lawyers.
“We have so many clients and so few attorneys,” says Springfield. “[At] Kansas Legal Services, we have about 45 attorneys and we get maybe 10-30,000 calls for legal help, and we are in a legal desert, most of our counties are rural. So, it's on all of us—all of us attorneys—to help out our community.”
Ever since securing the rule change, Koch attorneys have engaged in an ongoing partnership with KLS to provide pro bono expungement and driver’s license restoration clinics.
“Here at our company, we talk a lot about self-actualization and wanting each employee at our company to achieve their potential, and our vision with our Pro Bono Initiative is to use our legal resources and talents to help others in our community to achieve their potential,” Ellis says. “So how can we remove barriers that can allow people to move forward with their life and achieve what they want to do?”
A few months ago, Jiwanlal took on his first pro bono expungement case. He says that he felt hesitant because he had never done legal work like it before, but with support from Koch’s Pro Bono Initiative and KLS, he was able to tackle it—even when his case turned out to be more complex.
Jiwanlal’s client had a drug felony charge that was over 20 years old, and in many places, the charge has been decriminalized. Kansas allows companies to ask job applicants if they have a felony charge, which prevents many people with criminal records from finding stable employment. When Jiwanlal started working on the case, his client was actively seeking employment so that he could support his children. The client later told Jiwanlal that he had received a job offer but needed to secure the expungement. Jiwanlal reached out to Springfield and worked with KLS to expedite the process. They were able to clear his record, and the client was able to start his new job.
“[Pro bono is] not just a way to give back to the community—I think that's the main reason most of us do it—but it is also an opportunity to challenge yourself professionally and get outside of your comfort zone,” says Jiwanlal. “With the resources that are out there, I was able to do an expungement effectively and had the right people around me to make sure I was effective for my client.”
Springfield encouraged Jiwanlal to write about his experience for the Kansas Bar Journal and he did. She says that it’s important that attorneys like him share their stories so that other attorneys can hear how fulfilling it was and not be intimidated from participating.
“I think that one of our professional responsibilities is to give back to those that can't afford an attorney,” says Springfield. “What I try to do is make it fun and not too complex for the attorneys that are involved in it, so they'll want to come back [and] do it again.”
Talk Justice episodes are available online and on Spotify, YouTube, Apple and other popular podcast apps. The podcast is sponsored by LSC’s Leaders Council.