Students in the Trusts and Estates Skills Clinic at Florida Coastal School of Law and their professor, Vicki Bowers, took pro bono legal assistance on the road this semester.
The clinic has two goals: to provide students with experiential learning opportunities and to assist low-income residents with their legal needs.
At the first event in January, Bowers and the students visited Pablo Towers in Jacksonville Beach, a HUD-subsidized senior citizen residential center.
Thirteen seniors completed and executed documents including durable power of attorney, designations of health care surrogate, designations of pre-need guardian and living wills.
In mid-February, the team headed to the Nassau County Council on Aging in Fernandina Beach, where they assisted seven seniors with the same set of lifetime planning documents.
Later in February, they hit the road again, this time at the Downtown office of Jacksonville Area Legal Aid.
JALA is piloting a new monthly community service called Advance Directives Night. Low-income people who would like to create their advance directives documents may make appointments to meet with volunteer attorneys and law students.
Coastal Law established the clinic in 2010 with professor Robert Morgan, who remains involved with the clinic.
In addition to assisting with outreach events, the students and professors also have individual clients with whom they meet to draft and execute documents.
Students involved in this semester’s clinic include Kyle LaRose, Glaucia Jones, Kassandra Farnsworth, Germain Amponsah, Anthony Cooper and Christa Hunter.
The legal benefits of the clinic are easy to quantify, but the benefits to the people served goes beyond the advance directives documents. Because this service targets our low-income seniors, the one-to-one interaction across generations enriches all involved.
Sincere appreciation is extended to Florida Coastal School of Law professors Vicki Bowers and Robert Morgan and dozens of law students for the service provided in our community. With this valuable resource, dozens of our underserved seniors have received legal assistance.
Attorneys interested in pro bono opportunities in the 4th Judicial Circuit may contact [email protected].