One of the biggest changes for us throughout the pandemic has been how we’ve worked with volunteers. In the before times we would have upwards of 30 volunteers at the Southwest Legal Clinic on a busy day. Of course, restrictions to the number of people we can have in the clinic at any time and the necessity to maintain some social distance made it impossible to work with people at that volume.
Many of our longtime volunteers also found that they needed to work more or different hours, change school schedules, or otherwise change patterns. Many found that they could not spend their Wednesday afternoon with us any longer.
Now, our facilities that host our clinics are opening up a bit more, and we are again looking for more volunteers!
We are really in need of legal consultants and researchers for the Southwest and Eastside clinics.
Legal Consultants
Legal consultants take the lead in helping our legal clinic clients work through their legal issues. Legal consultants who are not licensed attorneys will begin a consultation with clients, gather information to define their issue, and then consult with our supervising attorney on a course of action. Consultants work as the anchor of a team of three: legal consultant, researcher, and translator. Experience or education with legal or immigration systems is necessary.
Researchers
Researchers work along with legal consultants and translators to sort our clients’ legal issues. You do not need to have any legal training, just your own laptop computer, comfort looking things up online, and the willingness to learn to use our database.
We need help on Wednesdays and Thursdays
We divide the day into two shifts; 12-2:30 and 2:30-5:00. Our clinics operate 12-5 pm Tuesday (Pontiac), Wednesday (Southwest Detroit), and Thursday (Eastside Detroit). Any first-time volunteers need to do their “orientation” shift at the Southwest Clinic on a Wednesday, this is the best place to learn how our clinics work.
Questions? Contact Adam Delezenne
Please share this and help us find some great volunteers!
Are you ready to come out and help our clients? Fill out this form to get started.
The Southwest Detroit Immigrant and Refugee Center provides free and low-cost legal services to those who need them most in the Detroit area, with a focus on recent immigrants and refugees.
We were founded in 2014 by Kevin Piecuch, our Executive Director,
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