After a successful 4ALL Statewide Service Day, Stephanie Crosby is looking back on the North Carolina Bar Association and North Carolina Bar Foundation's annual pro bono initiative.
Alongside personal injury attorney Jeremy Wilson, the business supervisor paralegal acted as co-chair for the March event, during which attorneys convened in-person at call centers—a first in three years.
In a feature published in the May 2023 issue of NC Lawyer Magazine, penned by Russell Rawlings, Stephanie shared her perspectives on what has changed and stayed the same with 4ALL. Through this captivating narrative, readers are greeted with the timeless message that "The More Things Change, The More 4ALL Stays The Same".
“I think it was really good this year,” Crosby said. “I think it is good every year, but this year people didn’t have to wait necessarily as long because they were going straight to somebody who was in their practice area. Sometimes things get a little backed up when you’re calling into the call center in Raleigh and using that number, and there are only 20 lines available, and somebody is on the phone. But this time we had very few people who complained about having a long wait time. They seemed to get passed straight through to the attorneys.
“Everybody seemed to be happy with the way it worked out. All of the site chairs in our debriefing seemed to think that, and the callers were happy. The attorneys were mostly happy, and the only real complaint was that they didn’t get enough calls. So, we said that next year we’re going to encourage people to check more boxes of the calls they’ll take.”
The statewide day of service was established under the leadership of then-President Janet Ward Black in conjunction with her signature 4ALL project to expand the provision of civil legal aid to the poor in North Carolina. Throughout its existence, attorneys have consistently reported that the experience has been most rewarding and, in many instances, reminded them of why they became lawyers in the first place. READ MORE.
Over 350 attorneys and nearly 99 paralegals and law students joined together to answer more than 6,100 calls from North Carolinians across the state.
