New head of bar association wants to help
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Howard Schulberg, the new president of the Allegheny County Bar Association, in the conference room at his Downtown law firm of Goehring Rutter & Boehm.
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An ill person usually calls a doctor or heads to a hospital emergency room.
But individuals who need legal help aren't nearly as likely to contact a lawyer.
Among the reasons: fear of how much a lawyer will cost, concerns about lawyers' reputations or complete lack of knowledge about where to look for an attorney.
In an effort to raise awareness on obtaining low-cost legal services and to polish its own image, the Allegheny County Bar Association is trying to raise public awareness about some good things it believes the law community provides.
"A doctor is easy: You have a broken bone, you see them and they fix it. But with [lawyers], sometimes it takes some time" for people to become comfortable, acknowledged Howard Schulberg, a partner with Downtown firm Goehring Rutter & Boehm. On July 1, he started a one-year term as president of the county bar association.
Seven out of 10 households need legal services every year, but fewer than half seek out a lawyer, according to an American Bar Association report that surveyed the public on their perceptions of lawyers. "The challenge (and opportunity) for the legal profession is to make lawyers more accessible and less threatening to consumers who might need them," said the report published in 2002.
The Allegheny County Bar Association has 6,600-plus members including lawyers, judges, paralegals, legal administrators and law students.
Most of the initiatives Mr. Schulberg hopes to promote during his term aren't new. Outreach efforts to children, teens and senior citizens have been under way for years.
But the bar hopes to generate more participation in offerings such as the Lawyer Referral Service, which matches individuals with lawyers according to specific questions and issues they need to have resolved. There is a fee of $30, which includes referral to a lawyer for a 30-minute consultation after which the individual can decide whether to retain the lawyer.
"And if there's something where the individual cannot afford services, our lawyer referral staff is trained to refer them to the appropriate agency like the Better Business Bureau, a public defender or State Attorney General's office," said Mr. Schulberg.
First Published July 15, 2011 12:00 am
