On June 1, 2020, VOLS launched the COVID-19 Frontline and Healthcare Workers Initiative, a project to support those working on the frontlines during the COVID-19 crisis. The idea for the project was simple: we wanted to ensure that frontline workers would have access to free legal counsel to put the right plan in place in the event they themselves succumbed to COVID-19 while they were caring for others. By providing these frontline workers with wills, powers of attorney, health care proxies, and other advance directives—free of charge—we could provide them with piece of mind and give their families the tools they would need if something went horribly wrong.
When we first learned that otherwise young and healthy frontline workers were looking to get their wills and advance directives done, we knew we had the skills and resources to help. We had been doing this work with our pro bono partners for decades through our Elderly Project. We just needed to figure out a way to do the work in a city that we no longer could recognize during the pandemic.
This was no easy task.
Our staff and our volunteers were working from home and had no way to do intakes to reach these workers. We needed to build an intake platform, rewrite our training materials and model documents to account for new rules on remote witnessing and remote notarization, recruit and train attorneys, and spread the word about this initiative.
In the end, we trained and engaged over 100 volunteer attorneys from 17 law firms and corporations who drafted hundreds of advance directives for dozens of frontline workers. We served doctors, nurses, EMTs, teachers, public health workers, and so many other dedicated New Yorkers. We did this using the VOLS approach: responsible and supported pro bono, involving community partners to serve clients in need.
As the crisis has abated and we are reopening our city, VOLS is officially sunsetting the Covid-19 Frontline and Healthcare Workers Initiative. And as we turn the page, we to take the time to thank all our partners on this project.
Thank you to Lawyers for Good Government for helping us build our intake platform. Thank you to Kirkland and Ellis LLP for helping us administer the program and assign the case to our volunteers, with a special thank you to Kirkland Practice Assistant Amy Heaton for her hard work on the project. Thank you to Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP for hosting our CLE training program and for reviewing our pandemic era training materials. Thank you to DC 37 Municipal Employees Legal Services for being our community partner and allowing us to collaborate with you to serve the members of the nation’s largest municipal employees union who were working on the frontlines throughout the pandemic.
Thank you to all our volunteer attorneys from Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP; Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP; Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP; Clifford Chance LLP; Covington & Burling LLP; Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP; Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP; Kirkland & Ellis LLP; McDermott Will & Emery LLP; McGuireWoods LLP; Morrison & Foerster LLP; O’Melveny; Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP; Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP; Stroock & Stroock & Lavan LLP; Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP; and Pfizer for stepping up and taking on these cases.
Most of all, thank you to the frontline and healthcare workers who sacrificed so much for our city and your fellow New Yorkers throughout the pandemic. We can never truly repay your sacrifice, but we hope that we were able to provide some of you with piece of mind while you kept us safe.