section update
Bankruptcy Law Section Update
Atlanta’s Pro Bono Legal Services Community
By Ron C. Bingham, II
Stites & Harbison, PLLC
W
inston Churchill said, “You make a living by what
you get. You make a life by what you give.”
Community service is woven deep into the fabric
of the Atlanta Bar Association. Year after year, members of
the Atlanta Bar honor this commitment through a variety of
educational programs and community activities. For more
than seven years, members of the Bankruptcy Section have
coordinated two primary projects through which they serve
the pro bono legal community: The Reaffirmation Project
and The CARE Program.
The Reaffirmation Project
The Reaffirmation Project was created through a collaborative
effort between the Bankruptcy Section of the Atlanta Bar
and the Atlanta Legal Aid Society. The program offers
free legal counsel to pro se bankruptcy debtors seeking
to reaffirm debts that would otherwise be dischargeable in
their bankruptcy cases. As one of the fundamental goals of
the Bankruptcy Code is to provide a financial “fresh start” to
honest, but unfortunate, debtors, the Reaffirmation Project
is essential to enable pro se consumer debtors to make
informed decisions about retaining or discharging debt.
Periodic training sessions are offered to instruct volunteer
attorneys how to provide legal 6