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258 Clients Served at MLK Day Free Legal Help Events
Text andphotos by
Lea McKenna
OnMonday, January20, 2025, the
Alaska Bar Association, in partner-
ship with the Alaska Court System,
Alaska Legal Services Corporation
and local Bar associations, hosted
its 16th annual MLK Day Free Legal
Help events in Anchorage, Juneau,
Fairbanks and Bethel.
The free clinics across Alaska
served 258 clients (a 58% increase
from the 176 clients served in 2024)
with civil legal issues, including
30 clients who had their questions
answered by Alaska volunteer at-
torneys online at Alaska Free Legal
Answers (Alaska.freelegalanswers.
org). Alaska attorneys advised low-
income Alaskans in need of legal
counsel on civil legal issues such
as custody, child support, divorce,
Ryan R. Roley (Family Law Office of Ryan R. Roley) and Karla Huntington (Law Office
of Karla F. Huntington) advising clients on family law issues.
housing, publicbenefits, employment
law, probate and wills.
A core leadership team has been
spearheading the organization of
these clinics for many years, some
since 2008 when the first MLK Day
Free Legal Help event was held,
including Alaska Legal Services
Corporation attorneys in Fairbanks
and Bethel. In addition, the majority
of the judges who do intake and the
advice attorneys generously donate
their time year after year.
The Alaska Bar Association's
partners help make these events
a huge success. The Alaska Court
System printed forms and offered
filing fee waivers to eligible family
law clients during the event. Alaska
Legal Services Corporation was on-
site to screen applicants for ongoing
legal assistance through a pro bono
attorney or community justice worker.
At the Anchorage event, Catholic
Social Services provided free shuttle
service for clients, connecting the
main event location with three An-
chorage shelters.
102 volunteers across Alaska,
including 61 attorneys and many
judges, law clerks and community
service organizations helped make
these events a success. Collectively,
our volunteers contributed 353 hours
of time.
The dedication of the MLK Day
volunteers is an inspiration to oth-
ers. They provide a vital service to
Alaskans. The words of gratitude
from the clients put it best:
You're not providing legal help,
you're providing legal hope.
I really needed that. I got a load
Tyra Boosewhile betweenclientsatfamily
law table.
off. It was like going to confession. I
feel better now.
[The volunteer attorney] walked
me through the forms and explained
the division of assets. It was very
helpful.
It was such a blessing to get my
questions answered. I tried as hard
as I could to do research myself and
it just helped to talk to someone in
person.
Localbusinesses also contributed
to the success of this event. Steam Dot
and Heritage Coffee donated coffee to
keepourvolunteersenergized. Kaladi
Brothers donated coffee drink cards to
show our gratitude to our volunteers.
Urban Greens gave a 25% discount
off of sandwiches for our Anchorage
volunteers.
Continued on page 5
Why Is It Called The Electoral College?
A Monograph by Eric A.
Kueffner, B.A., M.A., J.D.
The United States Constitution
does not mention an electoral col-
lege. Article II, Section 1 directs
each state to appoint electors, and
then says that the electors shall
meet in their respective states and
cast ballots to choose a President
and Vice President every four years.
Under this original scheme, Thom-
as Jefferson, John Adams and Aar-
on Burr screwed things up so badly
that everyone agreed to modify the
Constitution with an amendment in
1804. The 12th Amendment made it
clear that electors would vote sepa-
rately for President and Vice Presi-
dent but still said nothing about a
college. An entertaining discussion
of this history can be found in Chi-
afalo v. Washington, 591 U.S. 578
(2020), in which Justice Kagan cites
both the musical Hamilton and the
HBO TV Series Veep.
Federal statutes do not define an
electoral college but the term was
used in the Electoral Count Act of
1887 (Pub. L. 49-40, 24 Stat. 373),
as if everyone knew what it meant
and how it worked. This was en-
acted in response to the screwed up
election of 1876. This portion of the
law was codified at 3 U.S.C. Section
4, and was left intact when Con-
gress passed the Electoral Count
Reform and Presidential Transition
Improvement Act of 2022 (enacted
in response to you-know-what and
you-know-whom). As far as I can
tell, 3 U.S.C. Section 4 is the only
federal statute that says anything
about the electoral college. It reads
in its entirety:
Vacancies in the Electoral
College
Each State may by law enacted
prior to election day, provide for the
filling of any vacancies which may
occur in its college of electors when
such college meets to give its elec-
toral vote.
This law presumes that the elec-
toral college is a thing, that it meets
somewhere at some time, and that
it might have vacancies, which may
be filled. But the statute does not
explain why a gathering of electors
for an American president is called
a college.
To answer that question, we
need to engage in some etymology.
Don't worry, this will not involve
a lot of dead languages, but it will
veer off into early church history
with a significant detour to the Holy
Roman Empire. The word college is
derived from the Latin collegium,
which means colleagueship or part-
nership. In the Oxford English Dic-
tionary, the very first example of the
word college refers to a religious
association:
1. organized society of persons
performing certain functions; a. re-
ligious -Apostolic College.
The Apostolic College consisted
Continued on page 3
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