Abstract
One of Arthur Helton's most concrete contributions to the field of refugee protection was the development of pro bono legal representation projects in the United States. Through these projects, individual asylum seekers were, and are today, matched with volunteer lawyers who represented them in those proceedings. This paper reviews two pro bono projects developed by Helton: the Haitian Refugee Project of the 1980s and the refugee representation project at the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights. The paper examines the impact of those projects and considers whether elements of those projects can be, or have been, replicated or adapted to assist refugees within and outside the US. Despite the innovative use of pro bono lawyers and legal volunteers by projects around the world, too many asylum seekers still go unrepresented. Some states provide no funding for legal representation of asylum seekers; others provide only inadequate support for legal representation.