The Advocates provides pro bono legal representation to individuals seeking asylum in the United States. To represent asylum seekers, you can be licensed to practice law in any state, but must have a current bar admission. You do not need any specialized knowledge or experience in immigration law or asylum law – The Advocates can provide a basic asylum manual as well as training and support to help you with your first case. The Advocates conducts all of the initial screening of clients, to ensure they are low income and have a meritorious asylum case that is appropriate for placement with a volunteer attorney. The Advocates provides malpractice insurance to attorneys handling a pro bono asylum case placed by our office.
Resources are available on www.probono.net/asylum, which contains practice manuals, sample documents, memos from the immigration agencies, links to court practice information, case law and a list of currently available asylum cases. For more information about the types of cases and what is involved please see Types of Cases.
Our clients live in Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota. The cases we handle are all venued in Bloomington, Minnesota. In order to provide direct legal representation to asylum seekers, we require that our volunteer attorneys be admitted to practice in at least one state in the United States. If you are not an attorney admitted to practice in the United States, please refer to the other volunteer opportunities available on our site. If you are an attorney who is not located in Minnesota, North Dakota or South Dakota you are welcome to sign up to volunteer with us, bearing in mind that our clients are all located in our region and travel to hearings would be required. We do have other non-representation volunteer opportunities available for attorneys who live outside Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota.
If you are interested in providing pro bono legal services to individuals who are unable to afford counsel and who need an attorney to help them through the legal process, please complete this form as a first step. We will add you to our e-mail list serve, which is the primary we publicize cases. We will also ask about your particular interests, and language abilities. We ask that volunteers take primary responsibility for an asylum case. When you accept a case, you are agreeing to represent the client on his or her asylum matter. Once the asylum case concludes, you have the option to continue working with the client on the next stage of his or her case.