By Miryam Gordon
Limited License Legal Technicians provide quite a bit of pro bono service in their practices and also for agencies that recruit volunteers to provide such services. It’s part of the ethos of the license. The limits of the scope of the license are to practice within family law and to support petitioners in agreed and default minor guardianships.
The urge to become licensed as an LLLT arose from a diverse population of applicants. Some were disabled and hampered in their ability to go to law school for three years — and were drawn to license in one area of law for a more accommodating price and timeline. Some had encountered their own difficult family law cases and felt that they’d learned from experience how hard that was and were drawn to help others as a result. The Venn diagram could overlap there, of course.
In the family-law-specific training we took, instructors heavily encouraged pro bono service. Many of us responded to those exhortations and provided significant time and energy to individuals we accept as clients. Some of us volunteer through agencies. We’re very aware of how many potential clients can’t afford even our lower fees, based on how many calls we get asking — even imploring — us for help from people who need free services.
I have volunteered at a few legal clinics providing family law advice and also with KCBA Kinship Care. Paul McVicker solicits volunteer legal services for petitioners in minor guardianships. Because I serve as a guardian ad litem in minor guardianships, I see the many petitioners who have no legal help and their difficulty in finding legal help while striving to protect the children who need their care.
In the guardianship arena, there is more of a crisis in lack of legal services, since far fewer legal providers work in that area than in family law. What I heard from folks who used to provide services in “de facto parentage” was that the Uniform Guardianship Act (passed in 2019) made things too difficult and, well, they had plenty of work without worrying about that area of law. That initial response caused an exodus of legal providers and guardianship law has never really recovered.
KCBA Kinship Care (and LAARK - Legal Advice and Referral for Kinship Care, housed within KCBA but providing statewide services) was one of the agency responses to help fill in that gap. Still, they have plenty of cases waiting for volunteers to take one on. Any agreed and default case is always easier, so while there are a lot of pattern forms to draft, it’s a fairly simple process. I like the simplicity they provide and the feeling of being helpful for petitioners who otherwise would face a mountain of legal papers without any real support.
I also appreciate the camaraderie and exchange of advice when needed. Every case is different and there’s always something to learn. Guardianships can also be learned fairly quickly and one need not have practiced in that area to volunteer. Volunteering has always been a high value for me, and a way I know I am making a difference.
Miryam Gordon has been a guardian ad litem (and now court visitor) for 19 years and became a Limited License Legal Technician in 2021. She loves volunteer work and is currently on the LLLT Board, the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Council, the Disciplinary Advisory Round Table, and the executive committee of the Low Bono Section. She also provides pro bono support to some of her family law clients. (No, she is not independently wealthy.) She just recently shepherded the UGA Improvement Group’s statutory change proposals through passage of the Washington State Legislature (SB 5837).
