ULAS: Justice as shared responsibility

The Unified Legal Aid Service (ULAS), a Supreme Court initiative requiring lawyers to render free legal assistance to indigent Filipinos, marks a decisive shift in the Philippine justice system.

By requiring all members of the Philippine Bar to render pro bono legal services, ULAS moves access to justice from aspiration to obligation. It reminds everyone that justice cannot and will not depend on a person’s ability to pay.

Some lawyers have raised concerns about workload and capacity. These concerns are not without basis. Legal practice is demanding, and time is finite. But ULAS was never designed as an unreasonable burden, but a collective response to a structural reality: millions of Filipinos remain effectively excluded from the justice system because legal help is beyond their reach.

ULAS asks the profession to confront that reality, and to act.

At its core, ULAS operationalizes a principle long enshrined in our Constitution and ethical canons: that the practice of law is a public trust. It requires every lawyer, regardless of field of practice or seniority, to take part in narrowing the gap between those who can afford legal representation and those who cannot.

In doing so, it transforms legal aid from the duty of a few to the shared responsibility of all.

ULAS also redefines what it means to be a lawyer in this country. It makes us conscious of the fact that lawyering is not only about private clients and billable hours, but about safeguarding rights, especially for the marginalized.

When lawyers engage in legal aid, whether through court representation, legal counseling, or community education, they become active participants in strengthening democratic access to justice.

Furthermore, ULAS, by distributing this responsibility across the Bar, eases the chronic strain on the Public Attorney’s Office and helps unclog an overburdened court system. This coordinated approach improves efficiency while ensuring that more voices are heard and more grievances, especially the poor’s, are addressed.

Every pro bono hour rendered is not symbolic — it is a tangible intervention in someone’s life that benefits society as a whole.

As the legal aid requirement of 60 hours for the 2025–2027 compliance period takes effect, the legal profession faces a choice. It can view ULAS as either another mandate to endure or an opportunity to restore public faith in the legal system.

The services rendered under ULAS have the power, among other things, to prevent unlawful detention, protect victims of abuse, secure basic rights, and educate communities that have long been left behind.

The challenge is real. But so also is the impact ULAS was meant to have. It allows public service to be woven into everyday legal practice, not as an exception, but as the norm.

In all, ULAS is not merely about compliance. It is about credibility. A legal profession that demands respect — like any other respectable profession — must also demonstrate a larger responsibility.

ULAS calls us to remember that justice is strongest when it is shared, and that poverty should never be a barrier to the protection of rights.

If the legal profession is truly a public trust, then ULAS is one of its most powerful and practical expressions.