Barb Ybarra, a 44-year-old Man-katoan, says she would have fared far worse in her embattled divorce had it not been for her lawyer working for free.

“I probably would have just sat in court and agreed to whatever my husband threw at me,” she says.

As a person of modest means, she wouldn’t have been able to afford legal counsel, and her husband, represented by an attorney, likely would have held sway.

But with aid from a volunteer attorney program, Ybarra, with two children, was awarded the couple’s house and was absolved of owing her husband a share of its equity.

“He did a wonderful job,” she says of Mankato attorney Chris Rosengren, one of about 100 private attorneys associated with Southern Minnesota Regional Legal Services’ Volunteer Attor-ney Program.

The 25-year-old program covers 17 south-central and southwestern Minnesota counties and provides pro bono (from Latin meaning “for the public good”) counsel to low-income people.

Rosengren said he began donating time to the program right out of law school in 1998.

“I think attorneys are a privileged bunch, and there’s a need to give back a little bit,” says Rosengren, who in 2004 was named Pro Bono Attorney of the Year for the 15-county 5th Judicial District.

Ruth Harms of Mankato, the program’s southwest region coordinator, fills the attorney roster by first sending out surveys to determine lawyers’ volunteer areas of interest.

She says there’s a lot of legal-aid need among the elderly, and the sharp rise in home foreclosures has prompted the program to more closely focus upon housing issues.

But the most pressing need — and always has been — is in the area of family law.

“We never have enough lawyers for divorce and domestic abuse cases,” Harms says.

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