Law clinical faculty members named Bellow Scholars

Three members of the UB Law School clinical faculty have been named 2015-16 Bellow Scholars by the Clinical Legal Education Section of the American Association of Law Schools (AALS).

The prestigious biennial Bellow Scholars competition recognizes innovative empirical research projects aimed at improving justice for underserved communities. It was founded in memory of Harvard Law School professor Gary Bellow, a pioneer of innovative civil legal services for low-income people in the 1960s and one of the trailblazers of modern clinical legal education.

UB’s Bellow Scholars — Kim Diana Connolly, professor and director of clinical legal education; Danielle Pelfrey Duryea, instructor in the Health Justice Law & Policy Clinic; and Lisa A. Bauer, externships director — will work with UB sociologist Robert Granfield to examine the new Pro Bono Scholars Program, an initiative of the New York State courts designed to expand free civil legal services and access to justice for low-income people while helping law students become “practice-ready.”

Their research project, “Vision and Action": Access to Justice, Professional Formation, and Employment Prospects in the Inaugural Classes of New York's Pro Bono Scholars Program,” is one of five honored in the 2015-16 Bellows cycle announced earlier this month at the AALS’s annual meeting in Washington, D.C.

Connolly, Pelfrey Duryea, Bauer and Granfield, who also serves as UB vice provost for faculty affairs, plan to collect a wide variety of data on the Pro Bono Scholars Program. The project will seek insight into the students who choose to participate in the program, the people and communities that are served by the program, its community partners and the effect of participation on scholars’ postgraduate employment and pro bono volunteer work choices.

UB Law’s inaugural class of Pro Bono Scholars is the state’s largest, with 12 students to be placed with five legal aid organizations. Created in 2014 by Jonathan Lippman, New York State’s chief judge, the Pro Bono Scholars Program allows selected law students to spend their last semester of law school working full time, rather than in the classroom. Supervised by practicing attorneys, these “student-attorneys” will spend three months providing free legal help to low-income New Yorkers. Already hailed as a national model, the program launches statewide this spring with a total of 106 scholars representing all 15 New York law schools.

“The Pro Bono Scholars Program is a major initiative in one of the country’s most-watched jurisdictions,” says Connolly, vice dean for legal skills who is the principal investigator on the study. “With the New York courts’ support, our research will not only inform those who practice and teach in New York, but also those involved in legal education reform and pro bono work across the country.”

James Gardner, UB Law School interim dean, says that as the only law school in the SUNY system, it’s fitting that the UB Law School lead the effort to assess this significant new program.

“UB is well-positioned to understand how the Pro Bono Scholars Program fits into the history of pro bono legal work, as well as into up-to-the-moment debates about training the next generation of lawyers.”

Adds Granfield: “As UB’s vice provost for faculty affairs, I am pleased to support the Law School’s tradition of outstanding interdisciplinary research. And, as a sociologist who has studied pro bono practice extensively, I’m delighted to be part of this important research initiative.”