About ten years ago, the Voluntary Legal Services Program, along with the Sacramento County Superior Court, began an effort to better serve low-income pro per litigants Sacramento in need of assistance with family law matters. At the downtown courthouse, and later at the William R. Ridgeway Family Relations Courthouse, VLSP volunteers gave legal advice and filled out court documents for individuals seeking divorce, custody, and support. After seven years of dedicated service, VLSP's clinic at the courthouse closed in September of 2001.

While the closure significantly depleted the amount of services available to pro per litigants, VLSP and the Superior Court had already established another clinic to assists residents in South Sacramento with family law problems. In 2000, VLSP started the Meadowview Pro Per Clinic on Wednesday evenings at the Samuel C. Pannell Meadowview Community Center. Over a period of three years, staff and volunteers assisted thousands of lowincome people with their family law cases. Unfortunately, the clinic's initial three year grant was not renewed and without additional funding the clinic was closed in December 2002.

Since that time, VLSP's ability to provide advice and assistance with family law related cases has been severely limited. But now there is good news. VLSP has dipped its toes back into the waters family law! We know the river is deep and the current swift, but hope with the legal community's support, we will be able to provide much needed assistance to the many pro per litigants currently drowning in the system.

On January 8th, VLSP hosted an MCLE course entitled "The Basics of Family Law," focusing on summary dissolutions and touching on custody and support issues. We also received a very positive response to the questionnaire sent out to our family law volunteers regarding taking cases and possibly assisting clients in a clinic style format. Given our previous experience and difficulty in keeping family law clinics fully staffed with volunteers, we are hesitant to jump into such an endeavor at this point. Due to the vagaries of the schedules of our busy volunteers, a clinic requires the services of paid staff attorneys and paralegals to maintain a consistent volume of services. This requires substantial grant funding.

VLSP will, as a result, initially focus on referring out cases for direct representation by our volunteer attorneys. Depending on the success of such referrals and the response from clients, our next goal would be to expand our services to include either in-house assistance or possibly another clinic.

If you would like to wade in and join us on this journey, please visit our website at www.vlsp.org and fill out an online application. The video and materials from our MCLE training are available on request. For more information about our trainings, please contact Denise Carroll at (916) 551-2153. If you would like more information on our family law program or how you can help, please feel free to contact Heather Tiffee, Assistant Program Manager for Client Services, at (916) 551-2123 or Vicki Jacobs, VLSP Managing Attorney, at (916) 551-2162.

January / February 2005