Service Programs
Commitment to Our Communities/Cooley Cares
Students, staff, and faculty serve the communities where Cooley lives by participating in support activities for numerous organizations. The Center for Ethics, Service, and Professionalism encourages community service among Cooley employees by identifying service opportunities and matching employees who want to serve with agencies needing help. Each year, a Cooley employee from each campus is publicly recognized for outstanding community service and receives the Great Deeds Award. The Center introduced the Great Deeds Award, and has now recognized 12 employees for excelling in community service including Jill Pullum, Joan Vestrand, Tony Alvarado, Fred Puffenberger, Martha Moore, Nelson Miller, Nancy Wonch, Stevie Barachkov, and Aletha Honsowitz. In 2009, the award was given to Danielle Hall at the Grand Rapids campus, Julie Clement at the Lansing campus, and Audra Foster at Auburn Hills.
At the Ann Arbor campus, the community service spirit has taken hold with only one term of students attending. In October, 20 students volunteered along side Washtenaw county lawyers to provide pro bono legal services to indigent residents of the county. The six hour event, sponsored by the association's Public Outreach Committee, was held at the 14A-2 District Court in Ypsilanti. Students assisted clients with intake paperwork and participated in the lawyer-client consultations gaining exposure to techniques for building rapport and trust with a client, identifying legal issues, and problem solving the situation. Ann Arbor students are also volunteering, on a weekly basis, in the 14B District Court, assisting in the Misdemeanor Defender's Office and in the Clerk's Office. In addition, the Ann Arbor student body participated with the Auburn Hills campus in their Feeding 200 Families Thanksgiving project. The Ann Arbor students contributed nearly $400 in cash plus almost 100 cake mixes and cans of frosting for inclusion in the food baskets.
In Grand Rapids, due in large part to the wonderful inspiration and coordination efforts of the Center for Ethics Assistant Director Karen Rowlader, community service included the following:
- Coordinating efforts with the Grand Rapids chapter of the Black Law Students Association, the Center raised $560 by selling candy bar valentines to benefit programming at St. John's Home, a nonprofit agency that provides a variety of programs for troubled kids in Grand Rapids.
- Cooley students and members of the Professionalism Department participated in the seventh annual Stomp Out Stigma–Walk for Mental Health in Grand Rapids. Cooley’s eight participants raised over $600 for the West Michigan Mental Health Foundation.
- Working with the new Grand Rapids chapter of the Hispanic Latino Law Society, the Center sponsored an ice cream sale to benefit a very small, neighborhood library. Over $100 was donated for the purchase of English as a Second Language books.
- Students and staff helped to fill 150 personal care packages to be distributed to veterans who sought services at the 2009 Stand Down.
- Students and staff at the Grand Rapids campus painted ceramic bowls for the 2010 "Soups On For All" charity event to benefit God’s Kitchen.
- Operation Giving Tree gave students, faculty, and staff the opportunity to take a gift tag from the tree and purchase basic essentials and a few special items for the patrons at Dégagé Ministries. Over 80 gift bags were donated and distributed.
Approximately 70 students completed 229 hours of public service and volunteering, seven faculty members logged 40 hours of public service and volunteering, and 15 staff members gave 199 hours of public service and volunteering. Total at Grand Rapids was 468 volunteer hours offered to the community in 2009.
In Auburn Hills, students and faculty continue to prepare tax returns for indigent Pontiac residents through a program with Lighthouse of Oakland County; assist through organizations including Women’s Survival Center, Links (a not-for-profit corporation sponsor that raises funds for nonprofits), CARE House, an arm of the Oakland County Abuse and Neglect Council, Ruth Peterson Community Center, Meals on Wheels, Northridge Church in Plymouth, Lathrup Village Community Foundation, Elim Baptist Church, and the American Cancer Society; offer direct assistance to shelters including Open Door Rescue Mission Soup Kitchen, Interim House, Haven House, Spirit of Hope Soup Kitchen, and Habitat for Humanity; and contribute to the research and writing of lawyers writing for a real estate website designed and maintained by Florise Neville-Ewell to educate people about real estate issues.
Two Cooley Auburn Hills staff members and six students participated on a team for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society of Michigan’s Light the Night fundraiser and charity walk, through which a total of $885.00 was raised by the Cooley Auburn Hills team. A Thanksgiving meal event for less fortunate families in the Pontiac community was put together by over 30 Auburn Hills students, alumni, faculty. Through the sponsorship and contributions of the Oakland County Bar Association, Straker Bar Association, Cooley Auburn Hills and Ann Arbor Student Bar Associations, Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, the Law Offices of Duane S. Weed, the National Pan-Hellenic Council, the Kappa Foundation, and Cooley Law school alumni, the Auburn Hills campus provided Wal-Mart gift cards and 200 complete turkey dinners for the 2009 Cooley Cares: Feeding 200 event.
In Lansing, faculty, staff, and Cooley students offer assistance at Lansing Area AIDS Network, City of Lansing Diversity Committee, Loaves and Fishes, City of Lansing Project Homeless Connect, Ingham County town hall meetings where we assist with housing and foreclosure issues, the City of Portland, Downtown Lansing YMCA Wellness Center, Lansing Education Advancement Foundation, Ingham County Teen Court, Task Force on School Closings or Consolidation, Alzheimer's Association/Michigan Great Lakes Chapter, Eastern High School, the Beekman Therapeutic Riding Program, Advent House Ministries, and the City of Lansing Park Board, and sponsored five families at Christmas time.
^ top of page
Leadership in the Law
The faculty and staff of the Center hold leadership positions in our communities to promote competence and ethics in the practice of law. For example, we hold seats on the Attorney Grievance Commission, hearing panels for the Attorney Discipline Board, and the Sections and Committees of the State Bar of Michigan on Law Practice and Management, Grievance, Criminal Issues Initiative, Alternative Dispute Resolution, and Equal Access Initiative.
Click here to see a list of leadership positions held by members of the Center for Ethics, Service, and Professionalism.
^ top of page
Pro Bono Programs
Cooley operates many programs that offer free legal assistance to people who cannot afford or who would not otherwise fund such work. A complete list of programs available to students interested in offering their service is below. First, here is some background: Cooley faculty and students regularly contribute hundreds of thousands of hours of free legal service per year to pro bono projects and through externships and clinics. It is the breadth and quantity of free legal assistance offered by dedicated faculty who are not required to do such work and are not compensated in any way for doing it, and by students who undertake such work in many cases for no academic credit, through creative partnerships with agencies, shelters, courts, and bar associations, that distinguish Cooley’s efforts. In 2010 our students who participated in our externship program and our in-house clinics worked a minimum of 320,000 hours (the minimum number of hours required to be logged for each student for academic credit). Of that total, the students who worked in a public service capacity (using the Equal Justice Works definition of prosecutor, public defender, judicial, government, and civil work for indigent clients) logged a minimum of 167,500 hours. When combined with hours worked in clinics beyond what was required for academic credit and with hours worked in pro bono programs (offered for no academic credit), total hours of free legal assistance offered by Cooley in 2010 was 334,769. At an average $150/hour, the value of that work is over $50 million.
Notably, students worked 8,372 hours beyond what was required for academic credit in just the clinics. Combined with the hours worked through the pro bono programs listed below, also not for academic credit, Cooley provided a total of 14,769 hours of pro bono assistance to the poor and underserved, for no academic credit.
Also of interest is the hours worked for underserved populations. Cooley students, faculty, and staff attorneys provided over 35,500 hours of pro bono legal assistance to underserved and low-income clients, and those who would not otherwise fund such work. If you add to that the 167,500 hours students worked in a public service capacity (using the Equal Justice Works definition of prosecutor, public defender, judicial, government, and civil work for indigent clients), Cooley offered 202,571 hours of free legal assistance to the underserved and in public service.
Click here for a full listing of pro bono opportunities by campus
Since 2007, Thomas Cooley's Service to Soldiers program has been offering free legal assistance to Michigan military personnel who are deploying to, are serving in, or have recently returned from deployment and are experiencing civilian legal concerns. This program is offered state-wide to servicemembers of E5 rank or below, and works cooperatively with other veteran and military assistance programs throughout Michigan. The program has allowed Cooley students, alumni, staff, and Michigan attorneys the opportunity to give back to those who have sacrificed so much for our country.
Initiated by the Director of Cooley's Center for Ethics, Service, and Professionalism Heather Spielmaker, with assistance from the National Guard and JAG, Michigan soldiers on active duty and returning from war receive help with a variety of legal issues ranging from government disability determinations, to probate and estate planning, to reemployment. These soldiers receive free legal service through this referral program, which matches soldiers with Cooley Law School alumni and other attorneys who offer their specialized legal assistance to U.S. military personnel. The program was introduced in April 2007 and, since then, hundreds of deploying, deployed, and returning military personnel have received free legal assistance through the generosity of our participating faculty, alumni, and members of the legal community. Assistance has been offered in preparing wills and powers of attorney (POAs), and with handling family law issues, landlord disputes, insurance problems, and creditor/debtor concerns to over 3,000 returning servicemembers, and over 600 have received free legal assistance. Another 200 military personnel have been re-directed to other programs and resources that better suit their needs.
Well over 100 Michigan attorneys, many of them Cooley alumni, stand ready to offer their pro bono services when called upon, as they have done since they signed up, to help our nation's brave defenders. They have helped service members of the U.S. Marine Reserves: 1/24 Alpha (Grand Rapids), Bravo (Saginaw), and Charlie (Lansing) Companies; the Michigan Army National Guard 1461st Transportation Company (Lansing); the U.S. Army Reserve 415th Civil Affairs Battalion (Kalamazoo); the Selfridge Air National Guard Base; and National Guard units including 177 Military Police ETT; Company C 125 Infantry & 63rd Brigade; HHC & Company A 1-125 Infantry; Company B 125 Infantry & Company F-237; 63rd Brigade 125/126; 126 Press Camp; 1-119th Field Artillery Battalion headquartered in Lansing with units in Port Huron, Alma, Albion, and Augusta; 1073rd Maintenance Company – Greenville; 46th Military Police Command – Lansing; 3/330th Regiment and 95th Division (IT) - Waterford. The program continues to grow and offer services as requested.
An important milestone in the reputation and breadth of the program came when the Service to Soldiers program teamed with the Michigan State Bar Foundation and the Michigan law firm Honigman Miller Schwartz and Cohn to write and publish The Judge's Guide to the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA) in April 2009. Written by volunteer attorneys at Honigman and researched by a Cooley alumnus, this bench book was sent to every judge in the state using grant funds secured from the Michigan State Bar Foundation. This publication received a great deal of very positive media attention and resulted in an invitation for Cooley to speak at the annual district court judges' conference later that year.
Assisting with this program in various ways are 72 students who have offered legal briefings to small groups of deploying servicemen and women, conducted client in-take interviews, researched relevant case law, given presentations to groups of returning veterans and Viet Nam-era veterans, drafted wills and POAs under the supervision of licensed attorneys, staffed information booths, researched legal issues for inclusion in the Judge's Guide to the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA), and handled many of the administrative tasks necessary in maintaining the program. In fact, student volunteers contribute so generously to the administration of the program that the program's on-going success has come to depend greatly on their labor.
Having gained a great deal of insight into the legal needs of this population since the program’s inception, the program's administrator, Heather Spielmaker, was invited by Senator Valde Garcia to speak at a Michigan Senate hearing in February of 2009 regarding the needs of veterans in this state.
The Service to Soldiers Program stretched to new heights, or rather distances, in July 2009 when it organized, through the leadership and direct support and involvement of Associate Dean John Nussbaumer, the swearing-in of Cooley Auburn Hills graduate Miles Gengler via satellite while he was deployed in Iraq. Michigan Supreme Court Chief Justice Marilyn Kelly administered the lawyers’ oath as Major Gengler's wife, children, parents, friends, and Cooley family looked on. The ceremony was televised and reported on across the country during the Independence Day holiday, and was even covered internationally.
The Service to Soldiers: Legal Assistance Referral Program has received grants from the Michigan State Bar Foundation and the Ingham County Bar Foundation, and has also received monetary donations through fundraising efforts of the Cooley Inn of Court. Faculty members including Nancy Wonch, Charlie Palmer, Dustin Foster, Karen Truszkowski, and Deans Nelson Miller and John Nussbaumer have volunteered to assist at reintegration workshops by interviewing military personnel to determine legal needs, writing wills and POAs, and presenting on legal issues, and by recruiting additional lawyers to work pro bono. In addition, the Center’s administrative assistant Kathy Lawrence regularly volunteers her time to attend these workshops and notarize every legal document created. In 2009, students and faculty provided soldiers with 254 hours of pro bono assistance.
^ top of page
|
Alumni Community