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Annual Ask An Attorney Day held March 6, 2009

On Friday, March 6, 2009, the North Carolina Bar Association sponsored its second annual Ask a Lawyer Day as a public service to the citizens of North Carolina.  On that day, 6700 callers had access to volunteer attorney, paralegals and law students by phone between 7 am and 7 pm.  The calls were totally anonymous and covered the entire range of law from divorces to real estate, from traffic law to criminal.  

Call centers were set up in 8 call centers across the state, each with a unique toll free number.  In Greensboro, WFMY channel 2 offered up space in their offices to set up the area call center for the Piedmont/Triad region.  The phones began ringing at 7 am and stayed busy throughout the day.  In 2007, the 4All initiative was created under the Presidency of Janet Ward Black, who with the aid of the 4All committee and the entire NC Bar Association came up with a plan to make the legal process available to all North Carolinians, particularly the lowest income members of the population.  This initiative was divided into 4 fronts of action:  educate, legislate, donate and participate.  To read more about these initiatives click here. 

The Ask a Lawyer Day event sprang out the need for the members of the law profession to actively volunteer at least a portion of their time to assist people who for whatever reason do not have access to an attorney.  Legal Aid of North Carolina was formed to assist the financial challenged individuals of the state, but stops short of solving the problem due to lack of funds and personnel.  Thousands of North Carolinians are denied assistance from an attorney or the court system simply because they do not have the funds necessary to do so.  Every bar member is asked to volunteer at least 2 hours on this service day to answer any legal question that the callers may have.  Some calls end with their questions answered and others are given information as to what steps to take next.

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