In a joint project of the PA Bar Association’s Pro Bono Office, the Pennsylvania Legal Aid Network and Widener Law School, Harrisburg, students from the law school recently supplied PALawHELP.org with a series of information brochures entitled “Know Your Debtor’s Rights.”

The brochures are now posted on the PALawHELP.org website that is jointly supported by the PBA and PLAN to provide legal information for the public. The brochures were researched and written by ten students as part of their advanced legal writing course at Harrisburg’s campus. The brochures were designed to educate the public, especially senior citizens, who are seeking help on debtor-creditor issues.

“We see this project as a win-win situation,” said Professor Alexandra Makosky, who instructed and supervised the students. “The students learned how to research the law and write effective, eye-catching material addressing a current, real-world issue plaguing many households. The public now has some great informational material available to it written in plain English. In short, people can more easily know about their rights under the law. We at Widener Law School are thrilled with the end products of our students and are grateful to the Pennsylvania Bar Association’s Pro Bono Director, David Trevaskis, and PLAN’s Hank Leone, the coordinator of PALawHELP.org, for finding a way to share this information with those in greatest need.”

Widener’s Director of Legal Methods, Anna Hemingway, commended the students for their professional work, and she hopes that additional joint projects can be arranged in the future. “The students loved having the opportunity to solve a real-world matter. They learned that choosing the right words to explain the law is a powerful tool in our profession.”

To access the brochures, go to http://palawhelp.org/link.cfm?3357 and click on any of the authors listed there.

Leone, the PLAN attorney in charge of PALawHELP.org, worked with Professor Makosky to review the brochures prior to posting. As Trevaskis noted, “this is exactly the kind of partnership we are looking to promote to expand the information available to the neediest among us, as well as everyone else, on PALawHELP.org.”

PALawHELP.org is a guide to legal information and free civil legal services for low-income persons and seniors in Pennsylvania. Here you can locate information on a variety of legal issues, as well as information on how to contact programs providing legal assistance in Pennsylvania. This includes basic eligibility and contact information for the programs proving free legal assistance in Pennsylvania.

This guide is a free service which is made possible through a grant from the Legal Services Corporation and the ongoing support of Pennsylvania Legal Aid Network, Inc. and its member programs. The web site structure was created by Pro Bono.net and content in the site is maintained by Pennsylvania Legal Aid Network, Inc., in conjunction with Neighborhood Legal Services Association and the Pennsylvania Bar Association.