Chicago-Kent Student Hotline Project

Coordinated Advice and Referral Program for Legal Services - 040038

Abstract Number: 040038

July 2004

Coordinated Advice and Referral Program for Legal Services (CARPLS) launched the Chicago-Kent Student Hotline Project to enable clinical law students to answer calls and provide legal information to low-income individuals on landlord/tenant and pre-filing divorce matters. This pilot project allows students to enroll in a legal aid hotline course where they are required to complete over 100 hours of clinical and classroom work. Prior to staffing the hotline, students attend lectures on substantive legal issues relating to landlord/tenant and divorce matters, using CARPLS intake software, and hotline protocols. Students then begin to staff the hotline for three hours a week. The students work out of a Chicago-Kent Law School computer lab where students can remotely access CARPLS' web-based client database and other intake software applications. Incoming calls are forwarded from CARPLS to the students staffing the hotline who respond to the callers' queries. The students are directly supervised by an experienced CARPLS attorney. To learn more about this project, access the articles below available on CARPLS' and IllinoisLegalAid.org's websites.

Contact Information:

Pat Wrona
Coordinated Advice and Referral Program for Legal Services
Senior Staff Attorney
17 N. State St. #1850
Chicago, Illinois 60602
Phone: (312) 738-9494
Email

Additional Information:

• Newsletter Article, "CARPLS and Chicago-Kent Join Forces to Offer Hands-on Experience to Law Students," April 2004.

• Len McFatter "CARPLS, Chicago-Kent College of Law, and BTI Join Forces for Innovative Legal Aid Hotline," March 30, 2004.
  

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