Rebbecca Lake Wood:Tech-challenged attorney spearheads pro bono database

An attorney who’s trying to use cyberspace to secure legal representation for Kansas City’s impoverished admits technology isn’t her strong suit.

The 2009 president of the Kansas City Metropolitan Bar Association resorted to phoning a friend twice to help her post her own picture to the group’s Web site.

“I’m not on Facebook,” Rebbecca Lake Wood said. “I don’t Twitter. I still struggle with Excel.”

But, as tech-challenged as she says she is, Wood spearheaded an effort this year to create an online pro bono database that’s unprecedented in Missouri.

The Missouri Bar is looking into bringing a similar system online statewide.

At a time when the economy is forcing more people to represent themselves, Wood spent the last year crafting the concept of a site intended to link up Kansas City attorneys with citizens in need of free representation.

To her, it’s the practical approach to addressing a justice system that isn’t set up to deal with poor people in noncriminal matters.

“If all of their financial eggs are in a disability basket, then we’ve denied them that piece of the justice system in the same way we would deny them access to a public defender,” she said.

Wood’s been meeting with partners at large and small firms, trying to convince them their hearts and their pocketbooks would benefit from a business model dedicated to more community action.

“A lot of lawyers have sort of forgotten why we got into the business,” she said.

She has helped attract to the database roughly 20 firms and support organizations, and they have pledged thousands of attorney hours.

Wood said her work as Jackson County’s public administrator fueled her passion for the database project, which goes live in early 2010.

“The greatest joy in my professional life is the opportunity to serve people who without me would not have had access to the legal system,” she said.

Wood spent 17 years at the former Independence firm of Cochran, Kramer, Kapke & Willerth before she was appointed in 2000 to the public administrator post. She now represents 1,000 clients who are mentally ill, indigent and otherwise unempowered.

“I think people who live in poverty suffer from a very similar fate. They are faceless and nameless. There’s not nearly enough done to meet their needs,” she said.

Missouri Lawyers Weekly also earlier this year named Wood as one of the Kansas City Legal Leaders of 2009 in the public official category.