For organizations

Helping community organizations with unmet legal needs is the focus of the PBSC placement program. We strive to develop tailored projects that suit your needs while providing our student volunteers with a challenging and manageable project suitable to their abilities and availability. Since the PBSC program was first instituted at the University of New Brunswick in 1998, many local non-profit organizations have benefited from the assistance of skilled and committed law students eager to contribute to a worthy cause while developing their legal skills. It is our hope that we can do the same for your organization in the years ahead.

Why should you participate in PBSC?

By participating in this program, organizations can:

  • Better provide underrepresented and disadvantaged communities with pro bono legal work;
  • Have access to highly skilled, committed, and enthusiastic law student volunteers; and
  • Attend PBSC events;
  • PBSC UNB is not limited by geography! We can set up a long-distance program to suit your particular legal needs.

The Program

To clarify the role that PBSC plays within the legal community, students are not able to provide legal advice to organizations or to their clients; our work is limited to providing legal assistance in areas such as:

  • Legal research and preparation of legal memoranda
  • Public legal education
  • Case preparation
  • Drafting manuals and policy papers
  • Lobbying and advocacy
  • Providing assistance to counsel in legal proceedings or administrative hearings

If you would like assistance in drafting a project description or have any questions about the type of work that students can do for your organization, please contact our office.

Projects should provide students with a consistent and balanced workload. We ask our students for a commitment of three hours a week from September to November and from January to March, which means that a project should require approximately seventy-five hours of work to complete. This includes any training you may need to provide in order to complete the necessary task. Should the project require more time, we would be happy to assign additional students to ensure that the project is completed on schedule.

Each placement also requires a lawyer supervisor to provide the student(s) with initial direction and occasional support. The time commitment for a lawyer supervisor is only about five to ten hours over the course of the placement. Many organizations are able to secure a lawyer supervisor from among their staff, board of directors, or other contacts. If your organization does not have access to a lawyer to fill this role, our office may be able to assist you by finding someone from the local legal community.

If you are interested in being involved with PBSC during the coming year, please review this Reference Guide. After reviewing this information if you have any questions or would like to complete a project, please contact the Student Coordinator, Danny McMullen, by phone at (506) 458-7037 or by email (probono@unb.ca) so that we can assess your needs and work with you to clarify the project. You can also complete a project profile and submit it to our office. We need this information by July 15th, 2013, to help us match your project with a suitable student volunteer. If this timeline is not convenient for you, there may be an opportunity to start placements in January rather than September. Completed Project Profile forms can be submitted to the PBSC Student Coordinator.

Notice: PBSC respects your privacy. The information on this form is collected and used for the purpose of administering PBSC, which may include the operation and development of PBSC programs through the National and local offices, communication with and reporting to stakeholders, and program publicity. PBSC will protect the info in accordance with any and all applicable privacy legislation. Any questions can be directed to your local Program Coordinator.

PBSC UNB is grateful for the support we receive from the New Brunswick Law Foundation and UNB Law School.  PBSC is a national organization that also receives generous funding from the Law Foundation of Ontario, McCarthy Tétrault LLP and Westlaw Canada.