Middle Georgia Access To Justice Council Inc

To try to narrow the justice gap, we help members of our community get the legal services they need, but cannot afford. Specifically, to help people obtain access to government benefits, we clear legal obstacles that prevent them from obtaining a drivers license, and resolve legal birth certificate issues. To help with access to good employment, we assist people with clearing up criminal records. Finally, to overcome family/domestic issues, we help people: obtain protective orders against abusive partners; obtain divorces from absent our abusive spouses; stabilize child custody problems that impact the health and well-being of children; and secure and enforce child support.

Our most recent goal is to be proactive in attacking blight in our community through our Heirs Property Project. We are working in conjunction with Macon Area Habitat for Humanity to identify properties in low income neighborhoods with deed/title problems, and helping the owner/occupant cure these problems.

Our organization has four components: a lawyer incubator program; a lawyer referral service; in-house legal representation and other legal services; and a self-help center. Our purpose is to help people, through a variety of means, get the legal services they need but cannot afford in a wide range of civil areas of law. We serve to complement the good work being done by the Georgia Legal Services Program, and work hand-in-hand with the various ministries and service providers in town that assist the homeless, the needy, and the working poor. When someone calls our office for assistance, we generally schedule them for an appointment to meet with our Executive Director, who is a licensed attorney, and two board members who are also licensed attorneys. At that interview, we assess their case, and determine whether and how we can assist them, either through direct assistance, or through referral to one of the volunteer lawyers that have agreed to assist our patrons on either a pro Bono, or reduced-fee basis. Our incubator program participants also assist, where appropriate. When someone calls for assistance with a family law issue, we screen them to determine if they are a good fit for our self-help center. Due to limited resources in our community, and the fact that some people only need assistance, rather than a referral to an attorney, on their family law case, we recently opened our self-help center. We have taken the forms approved by the various courts in our service area, simplified them, and made them .pdf-fillable. We schedule a time for a user to come in and, with assistance, get the forms filled out correctly so that they can file them and proceed with their case.

Our most recent strategy is our Heirs Property Project. We are working in conjunction with Macon Area Habitat for Humanity to identify properties in low income neighborhoods with deed/title problems, and helping the owner/occupant cure th

To meet our goals, we started with a well-equipped office, an office manager, and soon had three incubator program participants. In 2019 we hired our first Executive Director, and this has greatly increased the number of people we are able to help. We have a very strong and growing stable of volunteer attorneys who have agreed to assist our clients. With the addition of our self-help center, we have greatly expanded our ability to assist people with family law issues. Finally, our strong partnerships, particularly with Mercer Law School, give us access to a wealth of volunteers, expertise, and institutional knowledge.

In December of 2020 we hired our Staff Attorney, Karin Vinson. Ms. Vinson comes to us with a wealth of experience in the areas of family law, probate, and real estate law, which are the dominant areas of need in this community.

We have accomplished a great deal in the short time in which we have existed. First, we have grown our number of volunteer attorneys to almost 50. Second, after hiring our Executive Director, we were able to double the amount of interviews we schedule each week for people needing assistance. Our Executive Director has also helped improve our efficiency by being able to directly represent people that we see. Our recently-added self-help center has greatly increased the number of people with family law issues we are able to assist. By meeting with and collaborating with court personnel in the counties we serve, we have greatly increased visibility of our organization. We are at the forefront of a project in Georgia to simplify and standardize forms for self-represented litigants. We have increased our revenue by expanding our donor base, successfully implementing a fundraising event which will be done annually, and securing grants from several foundations. Finally, we have added a Staff Attorney to increase our ability to meet our community's needs.