ULAS Explained: The 60-Hour Legal Aid Rule for Philippine Lawyers

The Unified Legal Aid Service (ULAS) requires most Philippine lawyers to give at least 60 hours of free legal aid every three years, under the Supreme Court’s Rules on Unified Legal Aid Service (A.M. No. 22-11-01-SC).

The first deadline falls on January 31, 2028. For lawyers who notarize, ULAS matters twice over. It is a professional obligation in its own right, and compliance is now written into the requirements for both traditional and electronic notarial commissions. Here is what the Rules ask, what counts toward the 60 hours, and where electronic notarization fits.

Where ULAS came from

The Supreme Court En Banc approved the Rules on August 20, 2024, and announced them on November 22, 2024. They took effect on February 3, 2025. They replaced two older schemes: the 2009 mandatory legal aid rule (B.M. No. 2012) and the Community Legal Aid Service rule for new lawyers (A.M. No. 17-03-09-SC).

The details sit in a separate ULAS Manual, which the Court approved on April 8, 2025 and which took effect on May 31, 2025. A ULAS Board chaired by Associate Justice Alfredo Benjamin S. Caguioa oversees the program, and a ULAS Office handles accreditation, compliance, and certificates. The Court keeps the Rules, the Manual, its FAQs, and every advisory on its ULAS page.

Who has to comply

Coverage is broad. Every member of the Bar whose IBP membership hasn’t been terminated and who hasn’t retired under the IBP By-Laws is covered, including lawyers who don’t actively practice.

The Rules exclude several groups:

• Government lawyers absolutely barred from private practice, such as members of the judiciary, prosecutors, and lawyers of the Office of the Solicitor General, as well as lawyers of the Public Attorney’s Office and Shari’ah counselors-at-law in public service
• Other government lawyers whose agency denies them authority in writing (the rest are covered)
• Lawyers with at least 35 years of practice, or at least 60 years old, reckoned from the last year of the compliance period
• Lawyers with disability
• Lawyers admitted to the Bar after the Rules took effect, for the compliance period in which they were admitted

An exclusion isn’t automatic. It counts only once you have a Certificate of Exclusion from the ULAS Office. The age-based exclusion lasts for life; the others last for one compliance period.

The 60 hours, and what counts

Each compliance period runs 36 months. The first began on January 1, 2025 and ends on December 31, 2027, and Compliance Reports for it are due by January 31, 2028. Covered lawyers must render at least 60 hours of free legal aid in each period, counted in six-minute increments (0.1 hour). Hours beyond 60 carry over to the next period.

The Rules recognize a wide range of service:

• Representation before courts and quasi-judicial bodies
• Legal counseling, negotiation, and drafting, such as affidavits, contracts, and memoranda
• Developmental legal assistance: rights awareness, capacity-building, and training
• Accredited legal outreach programs and missions, including legal clinics, seminars, and supervising law-student practitioners
• Notarization of documents
• Incidental activities, such as travel and waiting time in court

Online consultations count. The Court’s FAQs say it plainly: “Online or virtual consultations with Qualified Beneficiaries are considered pro bono legal aid services.”

A lawyer who can’t render every hour personally may make a financial contribution instead, at ₱500 an hour, for up to half of the requirement (60% if 24 hours were rendered in the first year). Lawyers based abroad may contribute for the full 60. Law firms and other registered organizations may pool hours, but each lawyer must still personally render at least 15.

Who can receive ULAS legal aid

Hours count only when the service goes to a qualified beneficiary, and only natural persons qualify. That means a client with court-appointed counsel de oficio, or an indigent under the tests in the Rules of Court: no money or property sufficient for food, shelter, and basic necessities, gross family income of no more than double the local monthly minimum wage, and no real property with a fair market value over ₱300,000. It also includes anyone, OFWs, migrant workers, refugees, asylum-seekers, and stateless persons among them, without sufficient means to afford adequate legal services.

The client signs a notarized Qualified Beneficiary Declaration, and the lawyer signs a Covered Lawyer’s Certification. Since April 2026, a certification from the Commission on Human Rights, the National Anti-Poverty Commission, the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples, or the Presidential Commission for the Urban Poor can stand in for both.

How compliance is reported

Compliance runs through the online ULAS Portal, which needs a Philippine Judiciary Platform (PJP) account. Phase 1 of the Portal, for registration, opened on March 3, 2026. Phase 2, for logging hours and generating Compliance Reports, had not yet opened as of the Court’s October 19, 2026 advisory, which said it is scheduled within the year.

Until it opens, the Court’s advisories say service rendered since January 1, 2025 counts, and lawyers should keep their documents ready to upload. The ULAS Office issues the Certificate of Compliance, and full compliance earns 15 MCLE units.

What happens if you don’t comply

A lawyer who falls short gets a notice and 60 days to cure the deficiency, contribute, or explain. After that, the penalties are a fine of ₱1,000 to ₱1,500 for every unserved hour, listing as a delinquent member of the IBP, and being marked ineligible for a Certificate of Good Standing from the Office of the Bar Confidant. The unserved hours also carry over to the next period, and repeat noncompliance draws heavier fines and a referral to the IBP or the Court.

Noncompliance doesn’t suspend the right to practice, and pleadings don’t need a ULAS compliance number. For a notary, though, the penalties reach further, because a notarial commission depends on good standing and on compliance itself.

ULAS and your notarial commission

The Court has written ULAS into both kinds of commission. Since June 21, 2025, a petition for a traditional notarial commission under the amended 2004 Rules on Notarial Practice must include the lawyer’s MCLE and ULAS compliance numbers.

The Rules on Electronic Notarization (A.M. No. 24-10-14-SC) go further. An applicant for an Electronic Notary Public (ENP) commission “must be compliant with the Mandatory Continuing Legal Education (MCLE) and Unified Legal Aid Service (ULAS) requirements.” The application carries the ULAS compliance number, a renewal requires proof of compliance, and every electronic notarial certificate states the ENP’s compliance with MCLE and ULAS, with the date.

In practice, the first compliance period hasn’t ended, so no Certificate of Compliance exists yet to number. The Court’s current ENP application form and its navigation guide tell applicants to enter “N/A” for the ULAS compliance number and period. Our ENP application FAQs cover what to enter on the Court’s form and on Twala’s, and how to become an Electronic Notary Public walks through the full application.

Where electronic notarization fits

Notarization of documents is on the list of creditable legal aid services, and online consultations count. Both are things an ENP can now do for a client anywhere in the Philippines, without either of them traveling.

Take a farmer in a remote barangay who needs an affidavit for a benefits claim. The nearest notary may be a boat ride or a long jeepney trip away, and the day’s wages lost on the trip can cost more than the notarial fee. Under the Rules on Electronic Notarization, a commissioned ENP in Iloilo City can notarize that affidavit for the farmer over live video, through an accredited Electronic Notarization Facility (ENF), as long as both are in the Philippines. The ENP may also waive the notarial fee in whole or in part, which Rule XII of the Rules allows.

The Rules don’t separate paper notarizations from electronic ones on the list of creditable services, and the Manual’s provision on notarizing for qualified beneficiaries outside a notary’s regular place of business is expressly without prejudice to the Rules on Electronic Notarization. How electronic notarizations are logged will become clear once Phase 2 of the Portal opens, so keep the record of each act and the beneficiary’s documents with your ULAS file.

Twala supports this kind of work directly. Under its legal aid agreement with the Integrated Bar of the Philippines, participating lawyers can give free online consultations to eligible beneficiaries on Twala, subject to the program’s intake and scheduling, and Twala provides free eNotarization credits for eligible indigent clients. The agreement supports legal aid under the ULAS framework, and it was one of the Philippines’ first two eNotarized documents, notarized on Twala at the official launch on October 19, 2026.

ENPs on Twala can also keep their legal aid notarizations apart from the rest. When creating a notarization, the notary can set its type to Legal aid (ULAS) instead of Regular, which keeps the act identifiable for reporting, and the type can’t be changed afterward. Marking an act as legal aid doesn’t set its fee: the ENP still decides it and can waive it. And as the Rules require, the notarial certificate Twala generates carries the ENP’s ULAS compliance line, which reads N/A until a compliance number exists.

A checklist for the first compliance period

1. Check whether you are covered or excluded, and apply for a Certificate of Exclusion if you are excluded.
2. Create your Philippine Judiciary Platform account and register on the ULAS Portal.
3. Keep a record of every service: the date, time spent, the beneficiary’s declaration, and your certification.
4. Count online consultations and notarizations for qualified beneficiaries, and keep the notarial record of each act.
5. Decide early whether you will contribute for part of the hours, and at what level.
6. Log your hours once Phase 2 opens, and file your Compliance Report by January 31, 2028.

Frequently asked questions

Does ULAS apply to lawyers who don’t practice?

Yes. Coverage depends on IBP membership, not on active practice, unless one of the exclusions applies.

Can I pay instead of rendering hours?

For up to half of them, at ₱500 an hour, or 60% if you rendered 24 hours in the first year. Lawyers based abroad may contribute for all 60.

Do online consultations count?

Yes, when the client is a qualified beneficiary. The Court’s FAQs treat online or virtual consultations as pro bono legal aid services.

Does notarization count?

Notarization of documents is one of the creditable services under the Rules, when it is done for a qualified beneficiary.

What do I enter for ULAS on an ENP application?

For now, the Court’s form and navigation guide say to enter “N/A” for the ULAS compliance number and period. On Twala’s ENP application, the Unified legal aid service step is optional; fill it in and the certificate becomes a required upload.

ULAS asks for 60 hours over three years, and electronic notarization takes away much of what used to keep lawyers and qualified beneficiaries apart: the distance, the trip, and the day of work lost. Lawyers ready to serve that way can apply as an ENP on Twala, and our view of what eNotarization means for the legal profession goes further.

This post summarizes the Rules on Unified Legal Aid Service, the ULAS Manual, and the Supreme Court’s advisories as of October 2026. Check the Court’s ULAS page for current guidance. Twala is a technology provider and does not give legal advice.