On first impression, the Mobile Library Law Center looks a lot like any of the white vans that roll through the streets of Baltimore County, a collection of towns and municipalities that ring the outside of Maryland's largest city. But this seemingly nondescript Ford Transit is actually a historic first, according to Baltimore County Public Library system director Sonia Alcántara-Antoine.

"We are proud to be the first library system in the country — in the whole United States! — to own and operate a mobile legal vehicle, servicing those who don't have access to legal help due to financial means, immobility or lack of transportation," she said during a mid-August ribbon-cutting ceremony at the system's branch in Woodlawn.

The center, for which the BCPL partnered with statewide legal services provider Maryland Legal Aid, hit the road Aug. 11 with a mission to provide complimentary legal services to underserved communities where residents may not know that such offerings are available.

The need for and difficulty of accessing such services in Baltimore County, similar to much of the country, has a lot to do with poverty. Although area residents often discuss the suburbs as totally different from the city it surrounds — a predominantly Black municipality where longtime racist policies have enabled endemic segregation, a poverty rate of 21.2% and myriad other systemic issues — Baltimore County still experiences many of the same issues. This is especially true in certain western and eastern parts of the county, where BCPL adult and community engagement manager Julie Brophy said the Mobile Library Law Center will initially be centered.

"There are pockets of our community that are very wealthy, predominantly white, and they have a lot," she explained to Law360 on Monday. "But that's not everything. We have huge swaths of our county where the median household income is $25,000 or less."

Brophy said that the BCPL and Maryland Legal Aid at first dispatched the Mobile Library Law Center to areas around Woodlawn, which is west of the city, and the eastside area of Essex after assessing census data and figures on assets, income and employment to find the places that had the greatest need.

The van that actually goes to these communities is outfitted with air conditioning, a small table, chairs and a curtain so that Maryland Legal Aid attorneys can speak with clients in relative privacy and comfort. It is big enough for most people to fully stand and speak with lawyers without being too close for too long — an important feature, given recent surges in COVID-19 Delta variant infections that have also pushed the organizations to have a mask mandate in the van.

Just outside the vehicle, Maryland Legal Aid and BCPL staff conduct intake and offer the library's research resources under an awning that further acts as a waiting area.

Maryland Legal Aid's deputy chief counsel Amy L. Petkovsek explained that this kind of wraparound mobile legal service not only literally meets people in need where they're at, but also helps address some of the background pressures that they face. For instance, people who might seek an expungement from their permanent records or protection from an abuser may also need help applying for jobs, so they can live independently; the MLLC provides all of these services, while helping people avoid paying for gas or public transit passes that they maybe could not afford anyway.

"By having this mobile unit and parking outside a public housing complex, we take all that stress away," she said. "And the removal of stress is the goal here — to make people feel legally well, to make them feel healthy, to allow them to feel like they can make their own choices going forward."

Executive Director Deb Seltzer of Maryland Legal Services Corporation, another statewide legal advocacy organization that was a principal donor and supporter for the center, added that these library resources separate the MLLC from other decentralized legal outreach programs.

"There are a few other mobile units across the country, but none that are operated by a library," she noted. "Having that trusted partner of a recognized name that a client may say, 'Even if I don't go to the library often, I know what the library is, I know that that's a community resource, so even if I haven't heard of Maryland Legal Aid or I don't recognize that I need a lawyer, I'm going to check this out because I trust the resources the library has to offer.'"

Besides Seltzer's organization, the MLLC is entirely funded by donations from the Foundation for Baltimore County Public Library, American Bar Endowment, Baltimore Gas & Electric Company, Maryland Bar Foundation, and other philanthropic and corporate entities, Brophy said.

The attorneys staffing the MLLC come from Maryland Legal Aid's Community Lawyering Initiative, which conducts outreach and offers free legal services through a variety of related programs. One of the initiative's lawyers, Stacy Bensky, said that she saw around 12 clients during the van's stop at the Islamic Society of Baltimore on Thursday. Aside from immigration process concerns, for which Bensky said Maryland Legal Aid does not offer services and thus had to refer elsewhere, the biggest issue that clients sought help for was tenant-landlord issues.

Community Lawyering Initiative clients frequently ask about housing issues, Bensky added, as states and municipalities reckon with what parts of the federal eviction moratoria actually apply to them. In Maryland, local moratoria have expired and thousands of residents are at risk of eviction despite renters' assistance and other aid resources that the state provides. Otherwise, many clients will come with what Petkovsek called "a panoply of issues" that range from domestic violence to difficulties accessing unemployment through Maryland's bug-plagued BEACON unemployment system.

Whether the MLLC's innovative solutions will help stem the tide of these statewide issues remains to be seen. Going forward, the two operating organizations' leaders hope to see the van continue to be used and supported by clients and donors, respectively. Petkovsek said that the lines that developed at some site visits anticipate a strong future.

"When you put yourself out there as providing a service, the need shows itself, and the need is showing itself already for this mobile unit," she said, adding, "Build it and they will come."

--Editing by Emily Kokoll.