Celebrating Pro Bono All Year Long: Meet Elysia Prendergast-Jones
Elysia Prendergast-Jones is a supervising attorney with Legal Aid of North Carolina. She is an advocate for domestic violence survivors and pro bono work. She earned her J.D. from North Carolina Central University School of Law (2008), where she volunteers as a law student advisor. She serves on the Family Law Section council, was the Pro Bono Committee Co-Chair of the Family Law Section (2021-2023) and is a Guardian ad Litem. Beyond her leadership roles with the NCBA, she has participated in Lawyer on the Line and 4ALL.
Her many acts of service reflect the spirit of volunteerism hailed during Pro Bono month, an annual spotlight taking place during October. The month is an opportunity for individuals and organizations to recognize the good that giving back can do, and to encourage others to join the call. Now, three weeks after Pro Bono month, is the perfect time to learn more about Elysia’s passion for pro bono, evident through her roles and service.
In this interview, she reflects on why her NCBA membership is meaningful to her and why pro bono volunteers are especially needed in North Carolina.
Editor’s note: In the photo above, taken on October 31, Elysia wears a purple scarf to shine a light on Domestic Violence Awareness Month, also held in October of each year.
Can one celebrate pro bono each month out of the year?
For Elysia Prendergast-Jones, the answer, in short, is yes.
Engaging in pro bono work, to her, is more than an activity. It is a way to have a positive impact on her community, and, in the process, to influence the next generation.
Elysia, who became an NCBA member in 2008, recalls what it was like to get involved with the association as a new attorney. At the time, she was a new mom, and when she participated in events at the Bar Center, she often brought her young daughter, Saliyah, with her. Elysia describes how the NCBA staff provided coloring books for her daughter, and how other members made both Elysia and her daughter feel welcome.
Fast forward to the present: her daughter is following in her footsteps. Saliyah is a volunteer with Capital Area Teen Court.
Student attendees at Camp Confidence, an NCBA event at which Elysia served as a volunteer. Elysia’s daughter Saliyah stands in the front row on the far left.
When asked what she values the most about her volunteer work, Elysia remarks on the lasting rewards, like seeing the example she gave her daughter and the students that one can help by participating in the Grab-a-Coffee program.
Elysia has also volunteered with lunch and learn programs and as many mentoring opportunities as she can.
“I want other people to be able to volunteer,” she says.
“Especially with the NCBA, it has opened so many doors. I was able to become treasurer of the Tenth Judicial District Bar & the Wake County Bar Association, and I was able to serve as the chairperson of the small firm general practice group when we had that. I’m on the Family Law Council, which is something I always wanted to do. Being able to volunteer put me in positions that I wanted to do, and now, I’m able to encourage more people to volunteer by sharing articles, volunteering and using that as a way to show people by example and actually doing the work that I encourage others to do.”
Elysia, who is a member of the NCBA Family Law Section and Juvenile Justice & Children’s Rights Section, is a native of New York. She moved to North Carolina in 2004 to attend law school after graduating with a counseling degree.
How did she move from the field of counseling to law?
Her love for volunteering helped her to define her career path and specialization. When she was a high school student in Darlington, South Carolina, she attended Mayo Magnet High School for Math, Science & Technology, where she enrolled during the first year it was founded. She began taking counseling classes at a local college and became interested in counseling and English.
At the same time, she was the president of several clubs at her high school and developed the requirements for the clubs she led. For one of them, she created requirements that included volunteer experience.
Following her high school graduation, she attended Coker College, where she earned dual degrees in English and psychology. During college, she began serving at domestic violence shelters and continued this work with a women’s shelter and a group home for young girls. She interned at another domestic violence shelter while she was studying for her master’s degree in counseling psychology from Webster University, where she would obtain her MBA.
“I think I’ve always had a passion for volunteering,” she says.
“My main work is with domestic violence survivors and their families. There are small things that you do with individuals, but you see how much it helps people in the future when you see them later, and they are able to take care of their kids, they are able to live, and they’re able to have a career that they never thought, so they can live in peace.”
Elysia, left, and daughter Saliyah, right.
She is glad to have a role where she can make a direct impact on others’ lives, but when she was in law school, she did not know her path would lead from counseling to the legal field, and even more specifically, to representing individuals who have experienced domestic violence.
Her early experiences volunteering with these different populations had an impact on her mindset.
“Growing up in and out of the hospitals, I couldn’t be a doctor and realized as a young child, all I could be is an attorney. It became my identity and was all I could see myself doing.”
After graduating from law school, she thought she would go into corporate law, but during her first year as an attorney, one person made all the difference to her career.
“I think life takes a turn and puts you where you’re supposed to be. That’s what happened with me. It was 2008 when I first started practicing law. I was in Henderson County where I didn’t know anyone. It was where my mom lived. I stayed with her the first year, so I could study for the bar and decide how to start my career, and then, I had a baby.
“The Chief District Court Judge at the time, Athena Brooks, took me under her wing and guided my career. She started me in family law because she told me to do abuse, neglect and dependency cases, which I started to do, and it opened up a new world for me, which I didn’t think I would ever go into.”
Beyond helping Elysia to select a focus for her practice, Judge Brooks gave her the support she needed as a new attorney. Elysia describes visiting her office often, where she was able to ask questions, to seek advice and, on some days, to shed a tear or two during difficult moments.
“I didn’t know what I was doing,” she shares.
“If I didn’t have a mentor, I don’t know if I could have maintained it. That first year, it was so hard. You walk out of law school, and you don’t know what you’re doing. I was there alone, and by myself, and she really took that and helped. And then again, I saw her years later at an NCBA event, and she hugged me and told me that her baby lawyer grew up, so it really meant a lot.”
Like Judge Brooks, who spoke words of affirmation and direction into her life, Elysia has used her voice to call others out from the wings to the stage.
In 2023, Elysia was one of the 351 attorneys who volunteered at 4ALL, when attorneys assisted a total of 6,103 callers across North Carolina. She is also one of 753 registered volunteers with NC Free Legal Answers, a program through which attorneys answered 1,941 questions in 2022.
Last year, during the final week in October, Elysia authored a post to rally others in the Family Law Section to serve their communities in a variety of ways: by signing up for a pro bono custody clinic, answering a question through NC Free Legal Answers or serving on a project with the North Carolina Pro Bono Resource Center. In addition to NC Free Legal Answers, the North Carolina Bar Foundation offers opportunities to get involved with Pro Bono Initiatives, Wills for Heroes, and more.
In a second post on the power of volunteering, “Share the Love of Pro Bono,” Elysia says that family law is one of the most requested areas of assistance needed during the annual 4ALL event.
Elysia pictured volunteering from home as part of NCBF 4ALL Statewide Service Day in March 2021.
Why is it important for others to join her in this calling?
One reason is the high volume of unanswered questions people have asked attorneys through programs such as NC Free Legal Answers. Two hundred and forty-one questions remain unanswered in the queue, awaiting only an attorney who is willing and able to volunteer. For some individuals, the only way out of their circumstances is through the knowledge an attorney can provide to them.
One conversation with an attorney may be life-altering: it may be the event that turns the tide and calms the storm for good.
“If you look at the queue of questions that people have, and the fact that the prices of attorneys are extremely high, and I’m not saying that people shouldn’t have these high prices for legal advice and legal services because you’re selling your knowledge, and that costs a lot to gain, but not everybody can afford that,” says Elysia.
“Legal knowledge or legal assistance shouldn’t just be for the people who can afford it.”
“That is why the need is so big, because there are poverty levels. Even in the middle class, a lot of individuals do not qualify for Medicaid. And imagine them trying to get assistance for their medicines, to figure out how they’re going to find five hundred dollars for a divorce or something like that, even the people who have gone through a domestic violence situation, and now, are still with the person they are holding on to because they don’t know how to fill out the paperwork for divorce, or they need some guidance on that.
“That’s why it’s so crucial to have people step in and participate in pro bono. You can help to break those ties, save somebody’s life or find housing. People may be dealing with mold and all kind of damages to housing, and because they’re poor they are being taken advantage of by some landlords, because who are tenants going to run to?”
In addition to domestic violence survivors, those who are impoverished, and those who are experiencing landlord-tenant issues, another group who may be in need of legal help are immigrants in North Carolina. Prendergast-Jones says that in some cases, immigrants have been trafficked, and may not know who to go to for help. They are worried about the consequences to their immigration status that may occur if they speak up and ask questions.
For individuals in situations such as these, a pro bono attorney can make all the difference.
“Having somebody to guide them and help them with immigration and housing, so that they can have a clean, safe place to live with heat and water – because a lot of people don’t have that, especially in these really severe cases – having somebody to be able to get them out of that situation can really change their lives.”
Elysia, far left, volunteering at the 2023 4ALL Statewide Service Day at WRAL-TV.
A significant reward of pro bono work is what it can accomplish. Especially in Elysia’s area of focus, she has observed the need for attorneys who are willing to volunteer. Legal Aid offers services to the 100 counties in North Carolina. In a given month, Elysia may have 50 cases. She works with about seven domestic violence and family law attorneys.
“There are days that we walk into court with six to eight cases a day, and if somebody could just take one case and spend a couple of hours in court, it doesn’t have to be a big time commitment. To be able to help represent one person, it’s both helpful for our limited staff, and it’s helpful for them to get their 50 hours of pro bono time per year.”
She says that, in certain cases, volunteer involvement is crucial. Having one other person to assist can alter a young person’s life in that moment and, ultimately, can change the trajectory of a person’s future.
As she thinks back to one particular case, Elysia remembers how Judge Rhonda Young made a lasting difference by offering a helping hand.
“She really saved the life of one young person that I needed help with. I was the attorney in that case, and I needed a volunteer Guardian ad Litem. And if she didn’t stop what she was doing and volunteer her time with that case, I don’t know where that young person would be.
“It’s been several years now, and that young person is in college and doing well. But they were fighting for their life, and without a volunteer to sit there and help me, we wouldn’t have been able to offer the services that were life-changing for them because they were facing a severe domestic violence case with both of their parents. So that is an amazing testament to the power of volunteering.”
Saying yes to pro bono may be simple, but the rewards are abundant: an attorney can help other attorneys, change the life of one person, and contribute to the overall well-being of a family and to others in the community.
“There are many times that people just need a continuance or our advice. There are so many clients who may get a domestic violence protective order and need some advice on custody, or help drafting the forms. Sometimes, we’re overwhelmed, and we can’t take on so many.”
Outside of her work with Legal Aid, Elysia represents children as an appointed Guardian ad Litem.
“Pro bono work makes an impact on the lives of the individual. I had a case for a minor, and I had to get volunteer attorneys to be able to represent me because I’m the attorney for a minor. We have to have volunteer attorneys represent all the parties. It was two minors. We needed three extra volunteer attorneys to work and to be able to help a family. To do that is amazing. I even found a volunteer attorney for the other party, the opposing party, but they declined that.”
Her role is fulfilling because she impacts others’ lives and does so with other attorneys and individuals in the field. At the same time, she says that there are challenges specific to her role.
“It’s emotionally draining. If you don’t know how to take care of yourself, then it is hard to take care of others or to just keep taking that role on. There are so many attorneys out here that when they see a client, the client is dealing with the worst stuff that they’ve ever dealt with, and they bring all of that to you and lay it on your shoulders, and then, you’re supposed to figure it out.
“Even the attorneys who are in corporate and things of that nature, it may not be a life and death situation that they are faced with as it may be with our domestic violence clients, but it is something monumental to them, whether they’re going to lose money or make money.”
Despite some of the challenges, there are many rewards to being an attorney, and one of those is the opportunity to volunteer with other NCBA members.
Elysia recalls the camaraderie she felt while serving at one event, where NCBA members made the experience memorable.
“I volunteered for Rule of Law, and I didn’t even know what it was at the time. Justice Newby was on that committee. And I thought, well, when am I going to have a case that actually goes to the Supreme Court? There, I was able to interact with him on a personal level, which was different, and I met so many judges and great people and attorneys whom I would have not met if I didn’t take the chance to volunteer and the time, which is why I encourage all of my mentees to do the same.
“I had an intern who became a mentee and started to volunteer alongside of me, Emma Whitten. I was honored to take her to events with me and see her love for volunteering grow.”
What does it look like to celebrate pro bono 12 months out of the year?
It looks like one person giving back, one day and one “yes” at a time. Each “yes” is a little win, both for those who are in need and for the spirit of pro bono.
And there’s no time like the present to join in.
Jessica Junqueira is communications manager for the North Carolina Bar Association.