Each of the Consortium schools is developing new structures for lawyers which support their aspirations to address unmet legal needs, enhance the quality of services, and reinforce professional commitment to ethical practice. CUNY, for example, is establishing three practice groups of approximately ten lawyers each, one focusing on the substantive area of family law, another organized around serving immigrants as a client group, and a third involving lawyers in small general practices in low-income New York City communities. With the guidance of experienced practitioners serving as project directors, each group provides its members with increased interpersonal support, substantive expertise, library and research resources, and assistance in the business of law practice management. Northeastern is developing two specialized collaborative practice networks, one to promote community economic development and the other to address family violence. Each group's specialized project director is bringing together a network of novice and experienced practitioners, law students, and law school faculty, as well as non-legal professionals in community organizations and other institutions.
Participants receive a variety of educational, research, mentoring, and networking opportunities.
St. Mary's is developing an extensive Web site to help PLAN lawyers use expanded Internet resources more effectively, communicate with mentors and faculty, and access videotaped continuing legal education courses. The University of Maryland is operating a demonstration law office in an under-served community in Baltimore. Although each Consortium school is developing and testing different approaches, they all share the core strategies of extending law schools into the community, organizing new resources to support solo and small firm lawyers, and expanding the lawyer's role. In addition to socializing law students to become professionals committed to under-served communities, the Consortium is demonstrating ways that law schools can provide their graduates with ongoing opportunities for reflection about their roles, effective continuing legal education, and practice resources from the universities' and law schools' libraries, faculties, and service programs. In coordination with Franklin Pierce Law Center's Community Lawyering Curriculum Project, which is also receiving funding from the Open Society Institute, the Consortium is exploring ways to incorporate relevant materials and issues into curriculum and programs for law students as well as law graduates.