The Mowafaghian Foundation donated $300,000 to fund and renew the operation of Access Pro Bono’s Everyone Legal Clinic. The Everyone Legal Clinic is a first-of-its-kind public interest law incubator that offers a full range of affordable legal services to everyone in BC.
The Everyone Legal Clinic is an innovative Access Pro Bono program that expands access to affordable legal services while training the next generation of lawyers. The Clinic provides fixed-fee legal assistance to British Columbians across a range of legal needs, while also serving as an experiential learning center for articling clinicians and notary clinicians.
By combining practical legal training with affordable public-facing services, the Clinic can achieve the following objectives:
- Increase access to affordable and high-quality legal services in communities throughout BC
- Provide affordable legal services to local small businesses and non-profit organizations
- Increase professional capacity for public interest legal service, particularly in underserved BC communities
- Provide a new generation of BC legal service providers with the substantive knowledge and practical skills (including practice management, cultural competency and human relationship skills) required to thrive in highly adaptive forms of public-minded legal practice
- Improve equity, diversity, working conditions and quality of education in BC’s lawyer and notary training systems, and reduce unmet need for articling positions in BC
- Promote new virtual, fixed fee and modular forms of legal practice