The Legal Aid of North Carolina Pittsboro Office is doing a service to both community members and the UNC School of Law by partnering to provide legal advice to low-income individuals seeking divorce.
By partnering with UNC in the new program, Legal Aid will provide a needed service while affording UNC Law students with a valuable opportunity for practice.
Legal Aid traditionally provides counsel to needy individuals who find themselves in “emergency” legal situations, like obtaining a restraining order against an abusive spouse.
Filing for divorce may not involve the urgency typical of Legal Aid’s cases. But it is still, almost without exception, a complex and painful process.
These woes are only compounded when the parties involved lack the means to hire a lawyer to help them navigate the daunting paperwork and intimidating jargon that comes with filing for divorce.
By helping community members work through the arduous process, students will have the chance to see how the laws they learn in the classroom play out in the real world.
Victims of domestic violence who cannot afford their own attorney — that is, people who might seek help from Legal Aid in the initial phases of their separation — are still very much in need of counsel in a divorce’s final stages.
The assurance and guidance of a professional is invaluable when attempting to divorce an abusive spouse.
Even something as seemingly simple as serving said spouse with the divorce papers can become an ordeal when there is a history of violence between the two parties. Having a lawyer to serve the papers for the client can mean the difference between actually following through with a divorce and lingering in separation limbo and its attendant complications.
