The Charlotte Triage pro bono partnership marked its sixth anniversary on Sept. 18, 2024, with a networking reception and CLE training sessions for legal professionals from across the region. Charlotte Triage is a collaboration led by McGuireWoods, Bank of America, Duke Energy, Moore & Van Allen and Wells Fargo to address critical legal needs for the most vulnerable members of the Charlotte community.
Charlotte Triage supports Legal Aid of North Carolina-Charlotte, the Charlotte Center for Legal Advocacy, Council for Children’s Rights, and Safe Allianceby enabling the organizations to outsource work to private practice lawyers and in-house counsel. The partnership handles pro bono matters related to housing eviction defense, criminal record expunctions, healthcare enrollment, special immigrant juvenile cases, children’s rights education and domestic violence survivors. CLE training sessions were provided in all six service areas during the Sept. 18 program.
In addition, Charlotte Triage presented Chelsea Corey of Haynes and Boone with the Champion of the Year award for her work in healthcare and Garry Rice of Duke Energy with the Volunteer of the Year award for his work with domestic violence survivors.
McGuireWoods, Bradley, Katten, King & Spalding, K&L Gates, Moore & Van Allen, Parker Poe and Troutman Pepper provided sponsorship support for the CLE sessions and reception.
“For the past six years, law firms and corporate legal departments have joined forces to expand the reach of legal aid and make a real difference in our community,” said Angie Zimmern, McGuireWoods’ pro bono director and a member of the Charlotte Triage task force. “We are grateful for the growing number of volunteers who step up to continue this program’s important work.”
Since its inception in 2018, Charlotte Triage has earned national and statewide honors for exemplary pro bono service. The Pro Bono Institute presented Charlotte Triage with the 2020 Corporate Pro Bono Award, which recognizes innovative pro bono partnerships between law firms, in-house legal departments and public interest organizations. The North Carolina Bar Association honored Charlotte Triage with its Outstanding Pro Bono Collaborative Service award in 2020.