Page 38 - Pierce County Lawyer - January February 2025

TACOMAPROBONO COMMUNITY LAWYERS By Laurie Davenport
IT’S A WRAP! 2024 is in the books...
here are our client numbers and
demographics (as of 12/10/2024):
HOW WE GOT HERE, PART 3 (2004-present) –
A short history of Tacomaprobono Community Lawyers
and Legal Aid in Pierce County
Family Safety
Project: 851
Housing Justice
Project: 3,921
Client Support
Services: 322
Volunteer Legal
Program: 1,427
Clients requiring
interpreters: 336
BIPOC: 42%
Demographics:
Black, Afro Caribbean, Afro-Latino/
1,335
a/x
American Indian 126
Asian (incl. East Asian, South Asian,
Southeast Asian)
175
Hispanic or Latino/a/x 655
Indigenous to Mexico, Central
America, or South America
15
Middle Eastern, Southwest Asian,
or North African (MENA/SWANA)
13
Native Hawaiian or
Other Pacific Islander
261
Multiracial 422
Slavic or Eastern European 11
White 2,501
Prefer not to Answer 219
Unknown or Other 115
Total 5,848
Tacomaprobono Community Lawyers is now
an independent nonprofit with an annual
budget of approximately $4.5 million and a
staff of 55 providing legal aid to vulnerable
populations in our community with the
dedicated help of hundreds of awesome
TPCBA volunteer attorneys. How did we get
where are today in 2024 from a ‘legal aid
bit’ with no budget or staff operating out of
the Perkins Building in 1964? 140 years of
fascinating history, collaboration, fighting for
funding and passion for service tells the story!
2004-2010 – The tacomaprobono.org website
was started, the program moved into offices at
715 Tacoma Ave S and a MOU was created to define the relationship
between the Bar Foundation, the TPCBA and the VLS Program.
Fundraising ramped up with the introduction of a 5-year Major Gifts
pledge program aimed at local law firms and an annual auction event
replaced the original ‘Night at the Theatre’ fundraiser as the program
worked to diversify funding sources to offset the effects of the Great
Recession on IOLTA revenues.
2010-2020—By 2010, the program had moved into its current
location in First Tower at First United Methodist Church. VLS
pursued collaborations and partnerships to extend its reach into the
community, working with Seattle University School of Law, Northwest
Justice Project’s Foreclosure Prevention Unit, and the WSBA Home
Foreclosure Legal Aid Project to help meet the needs of community
members facing foreclosure. VLS also worked with Northwest Justice
Project to create an Urban Indian Legal Clinic at the South Puget
Intertribal Planning Agency’s offices and partnered with the WSBA
in its new at the time (2013) initiative, the Call to Duty program
designed to anticipate and meet the needs of veterans returning from
Afghanistan. The program worked with WSBA to develop and present
‘Days of Service’ for volunteer attorneys (morning training, afternoon
clinic) to learn new skills and immediately put them to work assisting
veterans. In 2015, the program was awarded a competitive grant
through the Office of the Attorney General with funding resulting from
bank settlements following the foreclosure crisis to set up a Housing
Justice Project and hired its first Housing Justice Project attorney
to oversee development of the program. When that funding ended
in 2017, the Puyallup Tribe stepped in to continue support for the
Housing Justice Project and create a new Native American Legal Aid
Program, for which the program hired another managing staff attorney.
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