2001 Evaluation Process:

The evaluation process took approximately 3 weeks. During that time we:

  • spoke directly with 55 clients,
  • spoke with or received email correspondence from 52 individual attorneys,
  • spoke with 9 firms involved in partnerships (general counsel-model), and
  • received a total of 21 written evaluations from attorneys.

At least 3 attempts (1 email, 2 phone calls) were made to contact each attorney. As many as 2 phone calls were made to each organization. There were 19 cases where we couldn’t reach anyone involved in the matter. We did not provide an estimated average of hours spent on those matters, assuming that the difficulty in obtaining a response from either party indicated that involvement and hours would probably not have been significant.

Once hours and the status of the matter had been determined from speaking with the attorney, we began calling clients. We asked the organizations about the impact of the monetary value of the services provided, in addition to general evaluative questions. Attorneys were asked if they were registered members of Probono.net, and if they had any interest in serving on the board of a nonprofit organization. We then sent instructions on registering with ProBono.net to attorneys that were not registered at the time. We also updated contact information and collected email addresses. Clients were encouraged to increase communication with our staff, and were asked if they would be interested in having an attorney serve on their board.

Challenges:

The biggest challenge was reaching the attorneys. A portion of the attorneys did not have information available, and either referred us to someone else in the firm, or followed up with us at a later time. Also of some difficulty was determining how many hours each attorney spent on what matter for the partnerships.

Another challenge we faced in 2001 involved the way that questions translated from paper to phone. Questions that were sent to attorneys and organizations for them to fill out did not necessarily lend themselves to phone interviews. It became important to modify questions with consideration to this difference.

2002 Planned Evaluations:

Completing the evaluation process in 2001 also prompted a re-evaluation of CORP’s methods of file management. In response to a desire to have current and relevant information on a matter readily available, we designed and had built an Access database. While not intended as a final product, the new database enables us to update contact information, demographics information, and case status for matters, attorneys, organizations, and workshops, and to decrease the time it takes to place a matter, track down a volunteer, or contact an organization for a follow-up call.

We anticipate that the most important benefit of this database will be the increased accuracy and accessibility of statistics and information for funders, annual reports, and occasions of awards and recognition for our volunteers. By accessing one screen, we will be able to tell how many matters an attorney has volunteered for within any specific time frame, and how many hours they have donated for each matter.

Evaluating Partnerships

We will be separating out the partnerships from the discreet matters before we make the calls to either attorney or organization, and will determine lead attorneys and project leads from the organization for each partnership before calling. We will be collecting more detailed information from partnerships since they represent the majority of hours for the project, and will also keep data for partnerships separate from the rest of the evaluations.

Preparation

Emails will be sent to organizations and attorneys prior to the evaluation period in order to prepare them. The email will contain information about what kind of questions to expect, and a reminder to the attorneys to collect their pro bono hours for the year.

Data Collection and Storage

Either after each evaluation, or at the end of the evaluation process, we will transfer any relevant status information from the evaluations into the file-management database.

The results of last years evaluations were recorded in MS Excel on a two-page spreadsheet; one page for the attorney, and one for the organization. This year, we will modify this into a spreadsheet with one attorney data worksheet and one organization data worksheet for each matter.

Additional Evaluations

We are considering doing an additional in-depth evaluation in order to collect additional data from a sample of 5 – 10 organizations. The purpose of these in-depth evaluations would be to collect additional anecdotal information from organizations, and detailed information regarding the impact CORP has had on their programs and their ability to serve clients.