PAABA is a 501(c)(6) nonprofit and as such, volunteers have always played an important role in PAABA. Historically, volunteers have conducted intake interviews for PAABA’s Lawyer Referral Service, designed and maintained PAABA’s website, planned educational and social events, provided administrative support for events (such as collecting sign-in sheets, arranging for catering, handing out documentation, and reserving event spaces), sought out speakers, provided content for PAABA’s blog, publicized events, maintained PAABA’s social media networks, and conducted membership drives.
PAABA welcomes volunteers from all walks of life and will work with you to determine tasks that suit your comfort level and experience. Volunteers will be asked to join a Trello team board to coordinate tasks.
What Our Volunteers Do
Volunteers can choose any of the following three focus areas.
Lawyer Referral Service (LRS)
Duties would include training with our Lawyer Referral Services administrator, assisting with paperwork, and staffing the LRS phone line and/or office to help direct people to a lawyer who specializes in the type of law they need help with. Bilingual volunteers are particularly encouraged to work with LRS.
Practice Sections and Committees
Volunteers who have a specific practice area they would like to focus on can work with one or more of PAABA’s practice area committees. You would work directly with the committee chairperson(s) on a variety of tasks such as cold-calling potential speakers, writing summaries of speaker events for PAABA’s blog, conducting research to support white papers, or writing copy for the section website. Volunteers are encouraged to attend their committee’s meetings and may be asked to assist with setup, arranging catering, and documenting attendance.
Administrative Support
Volunteers working with the Board of Directors can choose from a variety of administrative tasks, depending on your interest and your expertise. Examples include:
- Maintaining website and troubleshooting WordPress errors
- Updating historical documents from PDF/hard copy to Word
- Reach out to local law firms about becoming a PAABA sponsor
- Work with local vendors and legal software programs to partner with PAABA as member benefits
- Monitor legal news and post stories on our social media sites
- Translate parts of our website into Spanish
Time Commitment
There is no minimum time commitment for volunteering with PAABA. Involvement can range from as little as 30 minutes online research projects, to 2 hour blocks for staffing events, up to several days invested in building a sponsorship database or writing white papers. While our Lawyer Referral Services and Committee volunteer positions require in-person availability, most of the administrative tasks can be performed remotely at any time of day.
What PAABA Can Do For You
PAABA’s goal is to integrate our volunteers into all aspects of our organization. Volunteers are invited to attend all PAABA educational and networking events free of charge, access all of our member benefits, host your legal writing on PAABA’s blog, and meet our Board and committee chairpersons. You are welcome to identify your PAABA internship on your resume or C.V. and use your PAABA contact as a reference in your job search. We would also be happy to help you identify a mentor within the PAABA community to answer questions or provide feedback about the practice of law, becoming a lawyer, choosing a practice area, and other relevant topics.
To volunteer with PAABA, contact info@paaba.org.