LSC President Ron Flagg introduces the conversation, which was recorded at LSC’s Detroit forum on July 15.
Moderator Robert Grey, a member of the LSC Board of Directors and president of the Leadership Council on Legal Diversity, was joined by Jared Fleisher, vice president of Rock Family of Companies; Kim Ray, senior managing counsel at Ford Credit; and Kim Yourchock, senior counsel at General Motors LLC.
The guests discuss how collaboration, innovation and leadership are key to expanding access to justice, and how private businesses can contribute to efforts to provide civil legal assistance for everyday Americans.
“The support for civil legal aid not only has to come from the [legal services] community [and] from the courts, but it has to come from our corporate leaders, as well,” Grey said.
“Economic development, pro bono and access to justice are key components to any society’s advancement.”
Fleisher explained that corporations should support legal services because they are one of the most effective forms of human services.
This is why the Rock Family of Companies expends resources to give people access to legal assistance for housing matters, or to help them navigate business licensure or permit processes.
“We truly believe that to have a more prosperous economy, where more people can participate and advance themselves, we have to help them navigate procedural barriers, process barriers, bureaucratic barriers, which are largely legal barriers of which the legal profession has a unique set of skills to help people navigate,” Fleisher says.
“[That] is how you can unlock their potential, help them be full participants in society and help make society overall stronger.”
Yourchock said that she sees a lot of General Motors’ attorneys expressing interest in giving back to the community in tangible ways. She explained that identifying opportunities, like expungement and drivers license restoration, where individual attorneys can make a significant difference in someone’s life, is very motivating.
“The relief on someone’s face when they know that their record will be clean and they won’t have to disclose something on an application that happened 20 years ago that they have never done again...I feel like I’ve been chasing that feeling,” Yourchock said.
In addition to providing training and assisting these corporate pro bono efforts, LSC-funded legal services connect private attorneys with clients in need of help.
Talk Justice episodes are available online and on Spotify, YouTube and Apple Podcasts.
The podcast is sponsored by LSC’s Leaders Council.
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