Service Programs
Commitment to Our Communities/Cooley Cares
Students, staff, and faculty serve the communities where Cooley lives by supporting the activities of numerous organizations. The Center for Ethics, Service, and Professionalism encourages community service among Cooley employees by identifying service opportunities and matching employees who want to serve with agencies needing help. Each year, a Cooley employee from each campus is publicly recognized for outstanding community service and receives the Great Deeds Award. The Center introduced the Great Deeds Award, and has recognized employees excelling in community service including Jill Pullum, Joan Vestrand, Tony Alvarado, Fred Puffenberger, Martha Moore, Nelson Miller, Nancy Wonch, Stevie Barachkov, Aletha Honsowitz, Danielle Hall, Julie Clement, Audra Foster, Katherine Fleming, Marjorie Gell, Julie Mullens, and Norm Fell.
At the Ann Arbor campus, students and staff assist in the Misdemeanor Defender's Office and in the Clerk's Office in the 14B District Court, participate with the Auburn Hills campus in their Feeding 200 Families Thanksgiving project, and support the Irish Perennial Society, the Volunteers of America, the Public Service Committee of the Washtenaw County Bar Association on their Constitution Day activities, the Washtenaw County Bar Association's Bias Awareness Week, and the American Red Cross. They also hold a mitten drive for needy residents of the Washtenaw County and a toy drive for patients at the University of Michigan's C.S. Mott Children's Hospital.
In Grand Rapids, students and staff assist St. John's Home, a nonprofit agency that provides a variety of programs for troubled children in Grand Rapids, Ferguson Apartments for formerly homeless people, Heart of West Michigan United Way, the Stomp Out Stigma–Walk for Mental Health for the West Michigan Mental Health Foundation, and the Grand Rapids chapter of the Hispanic Latino Law Society. Students and staff also help to fill personal care packages to be distributed to veterans who seek services at the annual Stand Down event for veterans, paint ceramic bowls for the "Soups On For All" charity event to benefit God's Kitchen, purchase basic essentials and special items for the patrons at Dégagé Ministries at Christmas time, and educate parents of school age children with documented special needs on their rights at Individualized Education Program meetings. Students also support the Grand Rapids Heartside Agency Kids Food Basket, which is a nonprofit organization that provides over 3700 sack suppers to Grand Rapids Public School children living below the state and federal poverty level every day, with "Feast for Kids," the largest fund raiser for the organization.
In Auburn Hills, students and faculty continue to prepare tax returns for indigent Pontiac residents through a program with Lighthouse of Oakland County; assist organizations including Women’s Survival Center, Links (a not-for-profit corporation sponsor that raises funds for nonprofits), CARE House, an arm of the Oakland County Abuse and Neglect Council, Ruth Peterson Community Center, Meals on Wheels, Northridge Church in Plymouth, Lathrup Village Community Foundation, Elim Baptist Church, and the American Cancer Society; offer direct assistance to shelters including Open Door Rescue Mission Soup Kitchen, Interim House, Haven House, Spirit of Hope Soup Kitchen, and Habitat for Humanity; contribute to lawyers’ research and writing for a real estate website designed and maintained by Professor Florise Neville-Ewell to educate people about real estate and foreclosure issues; and sponsor families and soldiers for meals and gifts during holidays.
In Lansing, faculty, staff, and Cooley students offer assistance at Lansing Area AIDS Network, City of Lansing Diversity Committee, Loaves and Fishes, Open Door Ministry, City of Lansing Project Homeless Connect, Ingham County town hall meetings where we assist with housing and foreclosure issues, the City of Portland, Downtown Lansing YMCA Wellness Center, Lansing Education Advancement Foundation, Ingham County Teen Court, Task Force on School Closings or Consolidation, Alzheimer's Association/Michigan Great Lakes Chapter, the Beekman Therapeutic Riding Program, Advent House Ministries, City of Lansing Park Board, and the Fenner Nature Center, and sponsor families at Christmas time.
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Leadership in the Law
The faculty and staff of the Center hold leadership positions in our communities to promote competence and ethics in the practice of law. For example, we hold seats on the Attorney Grievance Commission, hearing panels for the Attorney Discipline Board, and the Sections and Committees of the State Bar of Michigan on Law Practice and Management, Grievance, Criminal Issues Initiative, Alternative Dispute Resolution, and Equal Access Initiative.
Click here to see a list of leadership positions held by members of the Center for Ethics, Service, and Professionalism.
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Pro Bono Programs
Cooley operates many programs that offer free legal assistance to people who cannot afford or who would not otherwise fund such work. A complete list of programs available to students interested in offering their service is below.
First, here is some background: Cooley faculty and students regularly contribute hundreds of thousands of hours of free legal service per year to pro bono projects and through externships and clinics. It is the breadth and quantity of free legal assistance offered by dedicated faculty who are not required to do such work and are not compensated in any way for doing it, and by students who undertake such work in many cases for no academic credit, through creative partnerships with agencies, shelters, courts, and bar associations, that distinguish Cooley's efforts.
In 2011 our students who participated in our externship program and our in-house clinics worked a minimum of 395,074 hours, the minimum number of hours required to be logged for each student for academic credit. (Of that total, the students engaged in clinics and externships in public interest placements—prosecution, legal services, public defender, judicial and government placements— logged a minimum of 246,674 hours.) When combined with hours worked in clinics beyond what was required for academic credit (23,029), and with the 3,698 hours worked in non-clinic pro bono programs (offered for no academic credit), total hours of free legal assistance offered by Cooley in 2011 was 421,801. At an average $150/hour, the value of that work is over $60 million.
Notably, students worked 23,029 hours beyond what was required for academic credit in just the clinics. Combined with the 3,698 hours worked through the pro bono programs listed below, also not for academic credit, Cooley provided a total of 26,727 hours of pro bono assistance to the poor and underserved, for no academic credit.
Click here for a full listing of pro bono opportunities by campus
Since 2007, Thomas Cooley's Service to Soldiers: Legal Assistance Referral Program has been offering free legal assistance to Michigan and Florida military personnel who are deploying to, are serving in, or have recently returned from deployment and are experiencing civilian legal concerns. This program is offered state-wide to servicemembers of E5 rank or below in Michigan, and rank E6 and below in Florida, and works cooperatively with other veteran and military assistance programs throughout Michigan. In particular, the ABA Military Pro Bono Project asked to partner with Cooley Law School to combine the resources of both programs and provide greater coverage to service members. Service to Soldiers has been a valuable partner to the ABA Military Pro Bono Project and Department of Defense Office of Legal Policy. The program has allowed Cooley students, alumni, staff, and Michigan and Florida attorneys the opportunity to give back to those who have sacrificed so much for our country.
Initiated by the Director of Cooley's Center for Ethics, Service, and Professionalism Heather Spielmaker, with assistance from the Michigan National Guard JAG office, Michigan and Florida soldiers on active duty and returning from war receive help with a variety of legal issues ranging from government disability determinations, to probate and estate planning, to reemployment. These soldiers receive free legal service through this referral program, which matches soldiers with Cooley Law School alumni and other attorneys who offer their specialized legal assistance to U.S. military personnel. Thousands of military personnel have received free legal assistance through the generosity of our participating faculty, alumni, students, and members of the legal community. Assistance has been offered in preparing wills and powers of attorney, and with handling family law issues, landlord disputes, insurance problems, and creditor/debtor concerns.
An important milestone in the reputation and breadth of the program came when the Service to Soldiers program teamed with the Michigan State Bar Foundation and the Michigan law firm Honigman Miller Schwartz and Cohn to write and publish The Michigan Judge's Guide to the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA).Written by volunteer attorneys at Honigman and researched by a Cooley alumnus, this bench book was sent to every judge in the state using grant funds secured from the Michigan State Bar Foundation.
The Service to Soldiers Program stretched to new distances in July 2009 when it sponsored the swearing-in of Cooley Auburn Hills graduate Miles Gengler via satellite while he was deployed in Iraq. Then-Chief Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court Marilyn Kelly administered the lawyers’ oath from Michigan as Major Gengler's wife, children, parents, friends, and Cooley family watched Major Gengler take the oath on a video projection from Iraq.
Over 180 participating Michigan and Florida attorneys, many of them Cooley alumni, standing ready to offer their pro bono services when called upon to help our nation's brave defenders. Assisting with this program in various ways are 300 students who have offered legal briefings to small groups of deploying servicemen and women, conducted client in-take interviews, researched relevant case law, given presentations to groups of returning veterans and Viet Nam-era veterans, drafted wills and powers of attorney under the supervision of licensed attorneys, staffed information booths, researched legal issues for inclusion in The Michigan Judge's Guide to the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA), and handled many of the administrative tasks necessary in maintaining the program. In fact, student volunteers contribute so generously to the administration of the program that the program's on-going success has come to depend greatly upon their labor.
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