Rule 6.05(f) allows attorneys to earn one credit hour of CLE for every three completed hours of pro bono legal services performed at one of the organizations named in the rule.
- The organizations are (1) Legal Aid of West Virginia; (2) the State Bar’s West Virginia Free Legal Answers Program; (3) The State Bar’s Tuesday Legal Connect Program and (4) the WVU College of Law Center for Law and Public Service.
- Attorneys cannot earn pro bono credit for legal services performed at any other organizations.
- The enumerated organizations report the number of pro bono hours worked to the State Bar on June 1 of each year. The State Bar converts the number of hours to credits and posts the pro bono CLE credits to the attorney’s CLE transcript.
- You can earn a maximum of 6 pro bono CLE credits per reporting period (equal to 18 hours of pro bono work). No pro bono credits carry over to future reporting periods.
- There are no partial credits – it is a strict 3 hours for 1 credit rule.
For more information on earning credits through Tuesday Legal Connect (TLC) please contact Cindy Withrow at Legal Aid at cwithrow@lawv.net.
- Attorneys work a 2 hour shift from 6-8 pm on Tuesday evenings answering live calls.
- The calls can be taken remotely from your home or office using your own phone and a computer/laptop/tablet.
- You are given instruction and guidebooks from Legal Aid on answering calls.
- A form is completed to record information about each call and it is submitted to Legal Aid.
- The CLE Commission has deemed one shift at TLC to be approved for three pro bono hours so you will earn one pro bono CLE credit for every shift that is completed.
For more information on earning credits through Free Legal Answers contact State Bar IT Director Mike Mellace at mellacem@wvbar.org.
- Free Legal Answers is an online forum where the public can submit legal questions that are answered by volunteer attorneys.
- Attorneys who are part of the program are provided a login for the system where they can check the question list and answer as many questions as they wish. Documents can be attached to the written answers if needed for answering the question or to provide more information.
- If they wish, attorneys can subscribe to a particular category of questions in order to narrow the receipt of questions to their law specialty.
- Pro bono hours are calculated based on the amount of time an attorney spends answering questions submitted to the system.
- State Bar IT Director Mike Mellace can provide a tutorial on the Free Legal Answers system.
