COLUMN > PRO BONO ORGANIZATION OF THE MONTH
Q&A WITH ULP POLICY DIRECTOR ANNE PAXTON
Q. Tell us a bit about the history of your organization. What is your organization’s philosophy? Why do you do what you do?
Our organization, the Unemployment Law Project or ULP, has provided legal aid at no charge to unemployment benefits claimants for more than 40 years. This is crucial legal assistance to workers who have lost their job and are appealing a denial of unemployment compensation or defending their benefits against an employer challenge. We believe that all workers deserve compensation to cover their basic needs if they lose a job through no fault of their own, so that they can look for new, suitable work going forward. Benefits provide a modest fraction of a worker’s former salary for a limited number of weeks. When denials occur, representation very often makes the difference between winning an appeal and being forced to live without unemployment compensation to cover basic needs.
Q. Where is your organization located? Do volunteers participate remotely, in person, or both?
Our main office is in Seattle. Volunteers participate remotely; all hearings are by telephone.
Q. Who does your organization serve?
We provide civil legal aid to claimants of unemployment insurance compensation who have been denied, to assist with their appeals. The workers we represent are predominantly lower-income, may have limited years of education, frequently have disabilities, and include many persons of color and/or limited English proficiency. They are often at a severe disadvantage in obtaining benefits.
Q. What are the biggest barriers your clients face in accessing legal assistance?
Understanding of the complex unemployment insurance system, awareness of availability of help, and access to and understanding of technology.
Q. What area(s) of law do you provide services in?
We exclusively provide representation, in hearings before administrative law judges, to Washington workers whose unemployment benefits have been denied or are disputed. We also may assist with further levels of appeal to the Employment Security Department’s Commissioner’s Office, Superior Courts, and the Washington Court of Appeals.
Q. Does your organization provide training, CLE credit, or other benefits to volunteers?
We provide a two- to three-hour training in substantive law & handling hearings. Up to 24 hours per year of CLE credit is available for hours donated.
Q. Please provide one or two (anonymous) client stories—examples of people who were helped and how.
During the pandemic, ULP’s representation was essential to hundreds of claimants who were mistakenly ordered to return unemployment benefits they had received. A disabled claimant with limited English was one example; ULP attorneys won a reversal of the Employment Security Department’s benefit denial, erasing a five-figure overpayment.
More recently, a single mother with young children was denied benefits after she quit a job that required her to work hours for which no child care was available. On appeal, ULP was able to show that she had quit with good cause, allowing her to qualify for benefits. The judge showed little awareness of a new statute we helped get passed, now in effect, which added caregiving inaccessibility to the restricted list of good causes to quit a job, so our representation was especially important in making the best case for the claimant.
Q. What does a typical weekly or monthly commitment look like for a volunteer? How many hours? How many clients?
Our volunteers’ availability varies, and we are happy if they are able to take a case once per month. Some volunteers can only take a few cases per year, and that is fine with us as well. Others may take two or three per month. An average case would require about five to seven hours of time for preparation, client conferences, and the hearing itself.
We regularly conduct intake interviews with most jobless workers who get in touch with us, but we are rarely able to represent all of them. Where we cannot assign a representative, we do our best to provide free advice for claimants who will be proceeding pro se.
Q. What do volunteers say they enjoy most about serving clients through your organization?
Our volunteers are enthusiastic about providing effective legal help to claimants who are facing severe income shortfalls. An unusual benefit of our cases is that the Initial Orders by the judges, following a hearing, are issued quickly—sometimes the very next day. This is welcomed by both clients and counsel. Our volunteers mention this as a rewarding aspect of contributing their time and expertise. Many also find that engaging in litigation is satisfying. Some have told us their first case was the first challenging advocacy work they’ve been able to do since graduating from law school, even though advocacy was the main reason they chose law as a career.
Q. Are you currently in need of volunteers? If so, how can legal professionals reach out to get involved?
ULP had extra funding and significantly increased staffing during the pandemic, but we currently have only three full-time attorneys and two administrative staff to handle the influx of cases, plus four to five volunteers who are able to represent claimants periodically, and occasional law school interns to assist. We regularly conduct intake interviews with most jobless workers who get in touch with us, but we are rarely able to represent all of them. Where we cannot assign a representative, we do our best to provide free advice for claimants who will be proceeding pro se.
To get involved in our pro bono program, please contact Anne Paxton, attorney and policy director, at apaxton@ulproject.org or 206-441-9178, ext. 114. We appreciate your interest and welcome your participation in our program.
Q. What gaps in our existing system(s) does your organization fill?
The unemployment insurance program in every state is designed to support workers who become jobless—especially in times of recession or public health crises. It also provides an ongoing economic stimulus that stabilizes communities as their economies recover. The program not only exists to fill a gap created by economic conditions, however. During non-recessionary times, it protects workers from economic disaster and outcomes like eviction, foreclosure, homelessness, and hunger.
But it’s a very complex program, often nearly impossible for many workers to fully understand, especially if they have barriers of language, disability, education, access, or resources. A large percentage of jobless workers never apply, even though they would be eligible, while others struggle to cope with the application process or perform the required reporting to file claims. ULP fills part of the gap by helping them understand grounds for an appeal, develop arguments supporting their right to benefits, and prevail in a court of law.
Q. What would you most want readers to know about the type of work your organization does and the type of people who need your services?
The ability to rely upon a steady source of income is fundamental to all communities’ physical and mental health and people’s ability to thrive. ULP wishes to be a reliable source of help to protect workers’ access to unemployment compensation, and pro bono volunteers have been and continue to be a mainstay of our ability to achieve that goal
Learn More > To get involved, please visit https://nwirp.org/. More information about volunteering can be found at: https://nwirp.org/join/volunteer/.
About the author
Anne Paxton is a Washington-licensed attorney who serves as policy director and pro bono director for ULP. A graduate of Seattle University School of Law, she has represented clients for ULP while working intensively on reform of unemployment insurance law and policy since 2017.