I appreciate Sandra's comment. We handled that through the hiring of two people who solely work with our large and continuously growing volunteer pool. Like most legal-aids we have historically measured our impact by numbers and cases, but have seen a significant trend in outcome evaluations which are difficult to measure in a legal aid context. We are wrestling with what that means and how we might better follow-up with clients after the fact to determine longer term impacts on what we do - both economic and social.
I am fortunate to have a good volunteer base but I can't keep them busy because I just can't do everything. We train people but then we never get a case to them as I am busy with clinics, etc and tend to depend on the same people because it is quicker and easier. Not enough resources are put in volunteer lawyer programs.
I appreciate Sandra's comment. We handled that through the hiring of two people who solely work with our large and continuously growing volunteer pool. Like most legal-aids we have historically measured our impact by numbers and cases, but have seen a significant trend in outcome evaluations which are difficult to measure in a legal aid context. We are wrestling with what that means and how we might better follow-up with clients after the fact to determine longer term impacts on what we do - both economic and social.
I am fortunate to have a good volunteer base but I can't keep them busy because I just can't do everything. We train people but then we never get a case to them as I am busy with clinics, etc and tend to depend on the same people because it is quicker and easier. Not enough resources are put in volunteer lawyer programs.