Pro Bono Program offers legal help to NC residents
Through trips during breaks, Carolina law students assist residents and businesses in the state without access to legal help.
Rather than taking vacations during school breaks, UNC School of Law students travel around North Carolina to assist residents with legal issues.
UNC Law’s Pro Bono program offers a variety of options for students to provide legal aid to those in need. That includes semester-long projects, winter and spring break projects, programs that visit different parts of the state and partnerships through student organizations.
Their main goal is to serve North Carolina, as the program has done for 28 years.
“We are part of a public university in North Carolina and the flagship University of North Carolina, so one of the goals of our pro bono program is to serve the people of North Carolina as much as we can,” said Meghan Moran, director of pro bono initiatives at the UNC School of Law.
Licensed attorneys, many Carolina alumni, directly supervise and mentor students in the pro bono projects. They aim to help nonprofit organizations, government agencies or community members who otherwise can’t afford representation or have limited access to representation.
Their work helps clients in North Carolina and beyond, ranging from research-based tasks to hands-on client interviewing. This provides the opportunity to connect with communities and to use their law degrees in ways that give back to others.
“They’re building skills in legal research and getting practice with legal writing for when they leave law school,” Moran said. “They’re working on those important soft skills that come with being a lawyer, working with clients face-to-face and interpersonal skills.”
The program has offered more than 50 projects this academic year. Projects in the eastern, western and central part of the state ensure no region of North Carolina is left out.
“We continuously try to address areas where there might be a high-level need, but there’s not a lot of attorneys, or what we call a legal desert,” Moran said.
Last year, students traveled to Cherokee and worked with clients through a clinic that gave clients assistance legally restoring driver’s licenses, mostly suspended because of the inability to pay fees and fines. Students in Wilmington worked with small business owners to address their legal needs, including questions regarding entity formation and intellectual property.
Another group traveled to Boone and parts of western North Carolina to help clients draft Federal Emergency Management Agency financial assistance appeals in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene.
Miranda Papes, a third-year law student and the student director of the pro bono board, has been a part of each project.
“Boone was a really impactful clinic as we were helping people in these communities who had just lost their homes or who were trying to get back on their feet after this horrible storm,” said Papes. “Being able to participate in the clinic in western North Carolina was eye opening and showed me how I can use my law degree to help those around me, even if it is just to give people a little bit of hope in a time of need.”
In fall 2025, 10 law students worked with small-business owners in Sylva on key matters, such as contract reviews and assistance with employment law issues.
Students worked with the Women’s Resource Center of Greensboro and provided free legal assistance to women in need, serving 14 clients and drafting more than 50 documents.
Of this year’s graduating class, 91% of law students completed at least one pro bono project.
“We’ve heard from clients that our students are extremely empathetic and detail-oriented. They’re listening to their clients’ stories, making them feel heard and providing them with information they may not have gotten otherwise,” said Moran. “I think on a human level, people really appreciate somebody who truly cares about them and wants to make a difference.”
