Volunteering in the New Normal

By Heather Tiffee

Heather Tiffee is the Assistant Program Manager of the Voluntary Legal Services Program. She can be reached at htiffee@vlsp.org.

As of March 2020, my work life at VLSP Headquarters on 12 th Street looked and felt very different than it does today. We were celebrating the successful completion of a full year with our new Family Law Assistance Project. We were meeting with clients regularly in our office not only for that project, but also for our Debt Collection Defense Clinic and our Estate Planning Project. Volunteers were in our office at least 3 days a week either meeting with clients or giving advice over the phone. Face to face meetings with fellow staff members was a daily, if not hourly occurrence.

As of the date this article is being written, June 1, 2020…where is everyone? VLSP staff is working significantly reduced hours in the office, volunteers are not in their own offices most of the time – let alone ours, and we have not seen a client in person in over 2 months.

Now, while many things have changed over the last several weeks, some remain the same. VLSP is still here. We are still open for business, albeit in a virtual way. As always, we still NEED YOU! VLSP is a volunteer-based non-profit legal aid organization. We have a very small staff, recently increased from 6 to 7 people. Volunteers are our life blood.

I cannot adequately express my sincere gratitude to those of you who have been able to continue volunteering with us during the shelter-in-place orders. VLSP, through your generous donation of time and talent, has been able to continue providing counsel and advice to clients on family law, employment, debt and bankruptcy, guardianship, conservatorship, probate, and estate planning matters. We opened over 100 cases in 11 weeks, which was a remarkable feat for our small organization given the times. We spoke to many more by phone providing basic legal information and referrals to other organizations and resources. Thank you, VLSP volunteers, for all your help.

Where do we go from here? Looking forward, we anxiously anticipate being able to meet with clients and volunteers in person sometime in the future. After an initial lull in client demand for services when the Shelter In Place order was given by Governor Newsom, client demand for legal assistance is increasing daily. We have purchased and are ready to use personal protective equipment for anyone coming to our office. When we move to our new office later this year (spoiler alert…more to come on this in our next article), we will have more individual offices which will allow for better physical distancing.

While we hope many of our volunteers will be willing to come back into our office to volunteer, we understand that is not a viable option for everyone given personal risk factors and evaluations. We are brainstorming continually with staff and volunteers to refine ways for our volunteers to continue their involvement remotely, if desired or necessary. We are also acquiring the necessary technology to enable volunteers to meet with clients online and moving our forms database online as well. If you have experience in one of the areas VLSP provides services, and you want to volunteer, we will find a way to get you involved that works for you.

Please contact me at htiffee@vlsp.org if you would like to volunteer or if you have suggestions on service delivery options/models. I hope we will see each other soon!