Pleasant Grove attorney opens nonprofit providing low-cost legal services
Dustin Hardy works at his office in Pleasant Grove on Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2015. Hardy's law firm offers discount legal services for low income individuals. SPENSER HEAPS, Daily Herald
Dustin Hardy poses for a photo at his office in Pleasant Grove on Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2015. Hardy's law firm offers discount legal services for low income individuals. SPENSER HEAPS, Daily Herald
Residents in Utah County now have access to affordable legal services thanks to a nonprofit law firm started by a Pleasant Grove attorney.
Founded by Dustin Hardy, Choice Legal Services offers legal services on a sliding scale, based on a household’s family size and annual income. Hourly rates range from $60 to $145.
Running a one-man-show, Hardy isn’t rolling in cash. He drives a 1995 Toyota and lives in a modest home. He’s not a typical attorney, and that’s just they way he likes it.
“I want to help people and have enough money to put food on the table,” Hardy said. “I like that I can look my clients in the eye and say I’m doing this work for both.”
While living in New York City years ago, Hardy saw some of the poorest circumstances that exist in the United States. As a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, working with people who survived in “devastating living conditions” changed his life.
“When I got back, I had a desire to help people,” Hardy said.
He had always dreamed of being an attorney, but after graduating with a degree in sociology from BYU, he went into banking instead.
For 12 years, he worked his way up in the industry until 2007 when the recession hit. Instead of seeing the economy downfall as an ending, he saw it as a beginning.
Several years later he graduated with a law degree from the University of Utah and started working as an attorney in Orem.
“I didn’t think I’d like family law but found I was really able to help people who were without hope,” he said.
After hours, Hardy volunteered at Timpanogos Legal Center, a free weekly law clinic serving low-income families. Spending time at both showed him something was missing.
There are resources available to those who have a lot of money and to those well below the federal poverty level, Hardy says. But those who are in low and moderate income brackets — they don’t have options.
Though Hardy says he charged less than most attorneys in the county, the firm regularly had to turn away clients who couldn’t pay.
“For a lot of people an attorney is too expensive,” he said. “They see how much it costs and just give up.”
To support his claims, he has examples of couples who live separately for years because a divorce is too expensive as well as single parents who trudge on without child support because going to court is out of their price range.
It’s frustrating for them because they either try to do it themselves — which can be confusing — or they don’t do it at all, Hardy says.
Then last year when he saw a group of former classmates successfully start Open Legal Services, a nonprofit law firm in Salt Lake City, Hardy had an idea.
There’s definitely a need here in Utah County, he says.
On Dec. 1, Hardy opened the doors of Choice Legal Services, a low-cost law firm that specializes in areas of family law, landlord tenant disputes, contract help and mediation. It is located in Pleasant Grove and open Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Since opening, Hardy has helped more than 20 clients who would otherwise had no where else to go, he says.
According to Hardy, one man was finally able to adopt his stepdaughter, who he had raised as his own for nearly 10 years.
Another family avoided eviction when Hardy helped them understand their tenant rights.
“It provides a great opportunity to most people who couldn’t normally afford an attorney and now they can,” he said.
In Utah, several agencies offer limited legal services for free or reduced rates for those who earn less than 125 percent of the federal poverty level, Hardy says. When people visit him he always refers them to free services they may qualify for first.
To learn more, visit choicelegalservices.org or call (801) 785-4606.
