Frequently Asked Questions from Volunteer Attorneys

Watch an instruction video for volunteer attorneys

How does MD Free Legal Answers work?

MD Free Legal Answers is based on the walk-in clinic or dial-a-lawyer model where clients request brief and limited advice and counsel about a specific civil legal issue from a volunteer attorney. Attorneys provide information and basic legal advice without any expectation of long-term representation.

Users who meet eligibility requirements (see Eligibility below) enter into a Use Agreement, create a username and password, and then are able to post a request for legal advice or information and provide facts about their legal issue to help a volunteer attorney answer the question.

When posting a request for assistance, users will select a category (such as “housing” or “debt”) that best describes the general legal practice area of their issue. Before responding to a user’s question, the attorney may ask for additional information, but the user will be able to choose whether to respond to that request for additional information. A user’s name and county, but no other identifying information, will be shared with the volunteer attorney.

Users are informed that there is no guarantee that a question will be answered. If a question is not answered within 30 days, the user will receive an email from the website administrator instructing them to seek assistance elsewhere. The user will also be provided with a list of additional resources.

What kinds of attorneys should participate as volunteers?

All attorneys are welcome to volunteer! While there are certain types of legal questions that regularly come up at legal clinics, we need attorneys with different areas of expertise and practice to volunteer for this online service. We hope the website will appeal to attorneys who want to give back but have been unable to participate in traditional pro bono work due to family obligations, schedule, or geographic location. We also hope to engage attorneys who already provide pro bono legal services and are willing to give more of their time to those who need it.

How do I participate as a volunteer attorney?

If you would like to participate, you must:

1.) Create a username and password;

2.) Provide your contact information and Client Protection Fund number; and

3.) Sign the Lawyer Use Agreement and request approval from the website administrator.

Before your account is activated, the website administrator will check to ensure you are licensed in Maryland, an active member of the Maryland Bar, and in good standing with the Maryland Bar. Once you have been approved by the website administrator, you will receive an email notification and can begin answering users’ questions.

You can log in at any time to review a list of open or active user questions and select the question(s) you wish to answer. You will be able to use the legal area categories provided by the user (such as “housing” or “debt”) to help determine which question(s) you would like to answer. You will have the opportunity to read the full question before deciding to select and answer it. Once you select a question, you have 3 days to provide the user with an answer. You will be able to ask follow up questions if you need additional information in order to answer the user’s question.

The lawyer’s identity is not revealed to the user unless the lawyer decides to do so, the court orders the release, or there is a legitimate reason for the state or national administrator to release it.  Once a lawyer answers a question, the user will be asked to accept the answer or send a follow up question to the lawyer.

You will also have access to a log of the questions you have answered.

What sorts of people will I be serving on MD Free Legal Answers?

Eligibility for the service provided through MD Free Legal Answers is limited to individuals who meet the following requirements:

• User is at 250% of the federal poverty level.
• User provides his/her name, county, and zip code in order to request advice.
• User has posted fewer than 3 requests for information on MD Free Legal Answers within a year of asking their first question. (Note that users are able to follow up with an attorney assisting them as many times as the attorney and user choose until the question is marked as closed).

Will I earn CLE credit?

You will not earn CLE credit for your time answering questions on MD Free Legal Answers, however, your hours will count toward reportable pro bono hours for the year.

What happens if I cannot answer a user’s question?

There are a number of reasons why you might ultimately be unable to answer a user’s question. Some examples include a conflict of interest, the user’s failure to respond to your requests for additional information, or the question falls outside your area of expertise. If you determine that you cannot answer a question, you may place the question back in the queue so that another volunteer attorney can hopefully pick up the question and assist the user. Also, if you take a question and don’t respond within 3 days, the question may be returned to the queue of open questions.

What type of relationship exists with users whose questions I answer?

When you answer a user’s legal question, an attorney-client relationship will have formed between you and that user. However, that relationship will be limited in scope and duration as described in the Use Agreements for both users and lawyers. Your representation of that client will be limited to providing an answer to his/her legal question and will not involve any continuing representation of the client beyond the act of providing that answer.

In responding to users’ questions, you will be providing short-term, limited legal services to a client (i.e., an eligible user of this site) without expectation by either you or the client that you will be providing any continuing representation in the matter. Both eligible users of the site and volunteer attorneys must consent to the limited nature of this relationship both as to scope and duration, as indicated when accepting the terms of the Use Agreements. Eligible users and volunteer attorneys who do not accept the terms of the Use Agreements will not be allowed access to the site.

How do I check for conflicts of interest?

Under Maryland Rule of Professional Conduct 19-306.5, Nonprofit and Court Annexed Limited Legal Services Programs, the normal conflict of interest rules are relaxed for providing limited advice through MD Free Legal Answers. Under the rule, because of the pro bono publico nature of the limited scope representation and because of the involvement of the Pro Bono Resource Center of Maryland in managing the service, the only conflicts of interest that would preclude you from answering a user’s question are conflicts of interest that you actually know of at the time that you view a user’s question. This means that the possibility exists – and the users agree that they understand – that you, or another attorney with whom you practice in a firm, may actually be representing other parties with an interest in the question. The user’s name will be provided to you so that you can make sure not to answer the question if you know that you would have a conflict of interest.

What about professional liability insurance coverage?

When providing brief advice and counsel via the website you will be covered by professional liability insurance maintained by the ABA.

Is there a confidentiality issue with client information/attorney advice being housed on the internet?

This site is designed to ensure client privacy to the best of our ability. Since the web program is administered via email through a platform that limits access based on a screening, confidentiality will be maintained because only the national and state website administrators will have access to content passing between you and a user. Information available to the website administrators and a volunteer attorney responding to a user’s question shall remain confidential, subject to the limitations of the Privacy/Confidentiality Policy.

However, user requests for information or advice and the responses of the volunteer attorneys participating in MD Free Legal Answers may be maintained in a database for review in order to measure the effectiveness of the project. Steps will be taken to maintain the security of this database and it will only be utilized by the website administrators, but an absolute guarantee of security is not possible when using the internet and internet based systems.

For each visitor to the MD Free Legal Answers website, the web server automatically recognizes the user’s computer address. This is the information that is collected for statistical purposes.

Aggregate information is collected on the pages users access or visit on this website. The information collected is used to improve the content of the website and is not shared with other organizations for commercial purposes. Information may be disclosed when legally required at the request of government authorities conducting an investigation, to verify or enforce compliance with the policies governing our website and applicable laws, or to protect against misuses or unauthorized use of our website.

How do I navigate the website?

Once your account has been approved by the website administrator, you will receive a notification email. To get started, visit maryland.freelegalanswers.org and select “Sign In” at the top right side of your screen. After you enter your username (which is your email address) and password, you will automatically be directed to a page that lists all the open or active questions that have been posted by users.

The questions are coded by flags that indicate how long each question has been in the queue. Questions with red-outline flags are those that have been posted for more than 10 days and questions with filled-in red flags are questions that have been in the queue for at least 25 days and will be closed if no attorney is able to answer them. Questions that are not answered within 30 days will be closed and the user is notified.

There are four ways you can view questions in the queue:

1. You can view a list of all the questions in the queue. This is the default view.
2. You can view a list of questions that have been in the queue for 25 days or longer by clicking on the “Importance” option under the "Sort" button.
3. You can view questions by legal categories by clicking on the “Filter” button. 
4. You can easily view any question you have taken to answer by clicking "Home" on the menu and looking at questions in your personal queue.

The user is asked to use the Subject line to tell you, in their own words, what the question is about (for example, eviction, divorce, bankruptcy, etc.). The Category and Subject functions are tools to help lawyers quickly decide which questions they would like to review and answer.

How do I select questions to answer?

You can read the first few lines of each posted question by clicking the "Preview" button. If you decide you want to see more details, click on the subject to be taken to the question detail page. When you have found a question you’d like to answer, click the “I want to answer this question” button on the bottom of the question detail page. If you eventually decide you do not want to take a question you can click the "I want to return this question" to send it back to the full queue. You can also decide if you want to answer a question immediately by clicking "Answer Now" or answer the question later by clicking "Answer Later". Please respond within 3 days of taking a question. If you fail to respond within 3 days, the question may be moved back into the queue.

Once you have taken the question, you will be able to reply to the user and provide an answer or ask follow up questions. The user will not know your identity unless you choose to provide it. If you ask the user a follow-up question, you will receive an email when the user responds and a prompt to log back into the website to respond.

How do I subscribe to a category?

If your area of practice is specialized and you only want to answer certain types of questions, you can subscribe to a category and receive an email notification each time a question in that particular category is posted.

To subscribe to a category (for example, immigration), click on the “Manage Subscriptions” tab at the top of the screen. Scroll down to the category you are interested in and click on the red circle. When the red circle changes to a check mark, you have successfully subscribed to that category. You may also choose where you want to get subscription emails. To change it from your username email, click on your email address next to the green check and enter your different email address. Click the save icon to save your email address. You can unsubscribe at any time.

How do I track my hours for yearly pro bono reporting?

Each time you go to log out of the website, you will be prompted to enter the time you spent researching and answering questions. You may log your time in tenths of an hour. You may view your hours log at any time by clicking on “Log My Hours” from the menu.

How do I contact the website administrator if I have a question?

If you have a question or run into a technical problem with the site, you may contact the website administrator by emailing the MD site administrator.