BALI Ribbon-Cutting Ceremony Highlights Solo Legal Innovators and Their Social Missions

By Frank Zeccola 
LCD Graduate Fellow 

If you are considering starting your own solo practice in any area of law, you should take a long look at the Bay Area Legal Incubator (BALI) program, sponsored in part by Golden Gate University School of Law. The program bills itself as a “social mission incubator,” explaining that “we help attorneys accelerate the development of solo practices that have positive impact in our communities and our neighbors’ lives.”

The 2016-2017 program launched on May 27 with a ribbon-cutting ceremony at its shared office space in Oakland.

The BALI program, open to all licensed Bay Area attorneys, aims to close the wealth gap that places legal services out of reach for many low-income and even middle-class people. “Very few of us can afford to pay anyone, let alone an attorney, $300 per hour for some undefined, open number of hours,” BALI’s website states. To solve this problem, BALI trains and supports attorneys in “modest means” practices that include reduced or contingency-fee based legal services.

Accordingly, BALI attorneys are required to spend a minimum of half of their time taking on either pro bono or reduced-fee legal work for people of modest means with household incomes of three times the national poverty level or less.

In exchange, BALI gives attorneys a shared community, space, and resources, as well as mentorship in law practice management and substantive law.

These benefits are vital for new attorneys. For example, BALI offers lawyers ongoing mentoring with senior staff attorneys. In addition, the program provides extensive training in substantive and procedural law, weekly case review, free Lexis access and other software, access to low-cost malpractice insurance, a small stipend for the first six months ($500/month), and no overhead fees. Further, you will share free office space at the Alameda County Law Library in Oakland (125 12th Street, Suite 100-BALI Oakland, CA 94607), and have access to free MCLE training opportunities.

BALI is currently accepting applications for 2017 to 2018. The application can be found here. The deadline to apply is August 31 at 5 p.m.

If you’re thinking of taking the plunge and going solo, BALI offers great leverage to get your practice off the ground—and help your community at the same time.

For more info, click here.

BALI is a collaboration between the Alameda County Bar Association (ACBA), the Volunteer Legal Services Corporation (VLSC), the State Bar of California Commission on Access to Justice, and a coalition of five Bay Area law schools: Golden Gate University School of Law; Santa Clara University School of Law; University of California, Berkeley, School of Law; University of California, Hastings College of the Law; and University of San Francisco School of Law.