Haiti earthquake aftermath

There are a number of initiatives to provide legal aid to Haiti currently being developed, to address various legal problems arising from the disaster. Amongst them are:

• The International Bar Association is collecting resources to help rebuild the judicial infrastructure in Haiti.
• The Canadian Bar Association is collecting names of Canadian immigration attorneys willing to donate pro bono services to assist those with relatives in Haiti.
• Prese! Prese! is encouraging lawyers to join their database of those willing to donate pro bono or low cost legal services for immigration and ancillary legal matters to Haitians in the United States.
• Catholic Charities Legal Services in Miami, FL, USA, is helping undocumented Haitian immigrants to file for Temporary Protected Status with the US immigration authorities.
• Catholic Charities in Washington DC is also setting up multiple workshops to assist Haitian immigrants to file; email michelle.mendez@catholiccharitiesdc.org if you are in Washington DC and are interested in volunteering. The first workshop is on 30 January at 10am, with others to follow. They are also training interested lawyers in Washington DC to provide pro bono representation in Haitian TPS cases, on 8 February at 12pm; email kwach@milchev.com for information and to RSVP.
• The Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS) will be posting an MP3 of their recent free webinar training on TPS .
• The Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti have formed the Lawyer Earthquake Response Network (LERN) in conjunction with various human rights groups. Their mission statement appears here and you can apply to join their email group here.
• The American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) recently held a teleconference seminar on assisting clients to apply for TPS; the archived recording may be purchased here. They have also put together a resource for legal service providers who would like to host a pro bono TPS clinic in their community.
• AILA National has created a page to list volunteer opportunities for American immigration lawyers; it will be updated frequently.
• The University of Miami School of Law has posted a training presentation on obtaining TPS for Haitian clients, complete with Powerpoint slides and streaming audio. The slides alone may be downloaded as a Powerpoint file from the American Bar Association site.

Please contact ipbadmin@int-bar.org to suggest pro bono / legal aid initiatives to be linked here.

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Welcome to the IBA pro bono website!

This site by the International Bar Association brings together the global community of professionals involved in pro bono legal work on a local and international scale.Here, you will find resources to assist you in carrying out exciting projects - check out our list of resources and our calendar of events. You may also find inspiration in what other professionals are doing both on an international and on a local basis by reading articles and reports in the news and our library, and by having a look through our directory of links. Please be sure to register to the site so that you can share your thoughts and experiences with others doing work similar to yours, and learn about other types of innovative pro bono work that may interest you. We encourage you to contact us at ipbadmin@int-bar.org with comments and suggestions.

The latest post at the InternationalProbono.com blog invites dialogue on the damage to the young and developing legal aid program in Haiti, and the need for legal aid in coming months to assist in recovery.

Please see the IBA Pro Bono Declaration.

Please see the IBA website.

Please see the IBA pro bono project for Group Member firms and member bar associations.

Please see the International Rule of Law Directory website.