The More Things Change, The More 4ALL Stays The Same

May 17, 2023

With apologies to French writer Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr, the most memorable statement of his career translates into English as “the more things change, the more they stay the same.”

However, in light of the various iterations of call-in procedures 4ALL has utilized since its inception in 2008, the modified statement referenced above is certainly applicable to the North Carolina Bar Foundation’s annual day of service.

That’s because “the more things change, the more 4ALL does stay the same.”

For the record, the 16th Annual 4ALL Statewide Service Day was held on Friday, March 3. A volunteer workforce of 351 attorneys and 99 paralegals and law students joined together to serve 6,103 callers from across the state.

Six call centers facilitated in-person participation for the first time in three years, and hundreds of lawyers fielded calls from their offices and homes as volunteers have done throughout the pandemic. All of the calls are routed through an app and screened before being forwarded to the attorneys, who have indicated in advance which practice areas they prefer to discuss.

Stephanie Crosby of New Bern served as co-chair of this year’s event alongside Jeremy Wilson of Wilmington. For Crosby, a past chair of the NCBA Paralegal Division, this is her second stint as co-chair and fourth year overall in the leadership role. In other years, she has either served as a site chair or jumped in whenever and wherever she could lend a hand.

“I think it was really good this year,” Crosby said. “I think it is good every year, but this year people didn’t have to wait necessarily as long because they were going straight to somebody who was in their practice area. Sometimes things get a little backed up when you’re calling into the call center in Raleigh and using that number, and there are only 20 lines available, and somebody is on the phone. But this time we had very few people who complained about having a long wait time. They seemed to get passed straight through to the attorneys.

“Everybody seemed to be happy with the way it worked out. All of the site chairs in our debriefing seemed to think that, and the callers were happy. The attorneys were mostly happy, and the only real complaint was that they didn’t get enough calls. So, we said that next year we’re going to encourage people to check more boxes of the calls they’ll take.”

The statewide day of service was established under the leadership of then-President Janet Ward Black in conjunction with her signature 4ALL project to expand the provision of civil legal aid to the poor in North Carolina. Throughout its existence, attorneys have consistently reported that the experience has been most rewarding and, in many instances, reminded them of why they became lawyers in the first place.

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