The New York State (NYS) Workers’-Compensation Board has launched the Injured Workers Legal Assistance Project (IWLAP), its “first-ever” legal-assistance project to help injured workers obtain medical treatment. Under the project, injured workers can complete a simple online form maintained by the New York State Bar Association (NYSBA) to directly request a match to an NYSBA-member attorney […]
The New York State (NYS) Workers’-Compensation Board has launched the Injured Workers Legal Assistance Project (IWLAP), its “first-ever” legal-assistance project to help injured workers obtain medical treatment.
Under the project, injured workers can complete a simple online form maintained by the New York State Bar Association (NYSBA) to directly request a match to an NYSBA-member attorney who will represent workers with pro-bono help in certain workers’-compensation claims.
The form — hosted by NYSBA along with resources and information for attorneys interested in volunteering with NYSBA — is available at the webpage for the workers’-compensation injured workers legal assistance pro-bono project. Visit: https://nysba.org/pro-bono-services/#workers_compensation_project.
The board is partnering with the NYSBA to connect volunteer attorneys looking to assist injured workers with these claims. The partnership with NYSBA will allow for “faster processing” of representation referrals thanks to use of client intake and referral digital platforms.
In addition, this partnership will expand on recent collaboration between New York State and NYSBA’s COVID-19 pro-bono network, which has offered New Yorkers free legal assistance when seeking unemployment-insurance benefits and in probate and estate proceedings.
“The Injured Workers Legal Assistance Project gives injured workers better access to justice when they have difficulty obtaining medical care for their work-related injury or illness,” Clarissa Rodriguez, chair of the NYS Workers’ Compensation Board, said in a release. “The project helps workers with medical-only claims find legal representation, which also improves the overall operation of the workers’ compensation system.”
After identifying the need for representation of injured workers in medical-only claims, the NYS Workers’-Compensation Board created IWLAP and invited legal-service organizations to partner with it. In these medical-only claims, the insurance carrier or self-insured employer that pays the medical benefits has accepted liability but is disputing the medical treatment sought by the injured worker. These cases typically pose a challenge for injured workers seeking legal representation as “no attorney fees are awarded when there are no lost wages.”
The board provides training and support to host legal-service organizations and their volunteer attorneys. The board’s virtual hearings system, in use statewide since 2018, makes volunteering for IWLAP easier, as the system allows injured workers, attorneys/licensed representatives, and other parties to attend workers’-compensation hearings remotely through secure videoconferencing.
Users can log in once and move from one hearing to another, anywhere in the state, eliminating travel and reducing time spent away from work. The virtual-hearing system has allowed the Board to continue holding hearings uninterrupted since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
IWLAP launched in November 2020 in partnership with the New York State Unified Court System’s attorney emeritus program (AEP). It also involved two host legal-service nonprofit organizations — The Legal Project, based in Albany and the Worker Justice Center, which has offices in Rochester, Kingston, and White Plains.
More than 60 injured workers across New York state have been offered free legal assistance and more than a dozen have consulted with and retained pro-bono counsel in that effort.
The AEP, administered in part by Fordham University School of Law, helps recruit volunteer attorneys who assist injured-worker clients through one of the host organizations. AEP, The Legal Project, and the Worker Justice Center will collaborate with NYSBA and the NYS Workers’-Compensation Board to continue identifying volunteer attorneys and injured workers in need of assistance.