Sometime back in 2007, I was driving somewhere in Palm Beach County, Florida, with the radio on when I heard it again: a public service announcement from Urban Youth Impact about some event the organization would be holding.

It caught my attention because I’d heard other good things about them, and this time the name stuck with me. I decided to take a closer look.

When I arrived home I went online, found their website, and learned about their programs for West Palm Beach inner city children and families. I had been contemplating initiating a service project for the newly-minted Christian Legal Society of Palm Beach County. Any worthwhile faith-based organization must serve the community in some way; otherwise, it lacks balance, vision, and heart. Urban Youth Impact seemed like it could be a good fit. 

I picked up the phone and called Bill Hobbs, Urban Youth Impact’s founder and president. Bill agreed to meet with me. The result of our meetings was the Legal Consultation Ministry. One evening a month, we would pair volunteer attorneys with parents of the families served by UYI who had legal issues or concerns. We would meet with these parents at UYI, listen to them, and give them advice on how they can address and resolve their own legal issues. We did not offer representation, only advice and direction.

I quickly learned that legal resources available for people of modest means were inadequate. All the parents we counseled had already been to the local Legal Aid Society, but had been turned away because of LAS’s limited resources. The need for this Legal Consultation Ministry to expand beyond the one-evening-a-month offering was obvious, and the intention to eventually focus my entire law practice on meeting this need grew in me. I surmised I could qualify for grants and obtain donations to support this service.

While I was making those plans, life intervened, and the Legal Consultation Ministry was a heartbreaking casualty.

But the lessons I learned while serving the UYI community never left me. The idea of focusing my practice on helping people solve their own legal problems – instead of leaving people to flounder alone in the legal system – persisted in the back of my mind as I worked to eke out a living in my solo litigation practice.

Over time my vision of the service as a charitable organization developed into a model that could function and even flourish without dependency on grants and donations. Such funds can be difficult to come by, and the thought that I might compete with the Legal Aid Society and similar organizations for a share of these limited available funds did not sit well with me. 

At the same time, I began coaching people who were representing themselves in court. I learned how to do it. I paid attention to their needs, to the outcomes, and to the consequences and celebrations.

All of these things taken together have formed LawYou America. Now we do not merely provide information and direction. We empower through education, connection, and advocacy.

Our most recent offering is the members-only Association for Pro Se Advancement. APSA offers unique benefits and a non-Facebook platform for connecting with others.

There is something for everyone here at LawYou America, even if you never represent yourself in court. After all, the courts are the third branch of government, and the third branch belongs to us all.