December 2001

The "Giving Season" Lasts All Year for Lawyer Volunteers

by Jan Michels
WSBA Executive Director
janm@wsba.org

This past spring, a survey about volunteer work was e-mailed to 11,300 members. 1,234 surveys were returned — an 11 percent response rate! The survey results are noteworthy, even if the results may be skewed toward lawyers who volunteer. The raw number of volunteer hours reported was 248,076! That’s an average of 201 hours annually per survey respondent. This number represents the volunteer hours of less than five percent of the WSBA’s active members. The survey verified what we have known all along — lawyers give … and generously.

There appear to be as many ways for lawyers to support their communities and profession as there were survey respondents. Here are a few highlights about how lawyers give their time and energy:

• The top beneficiaries of lawyers’ voluntary services are friends, family and neighbors — 68 percent of the respondents reported voluntarily helping these persons with their legal problems.

• Nonprofits, charities and pro bono programs also benefited — more than half of the respondents reported volunteering their assistance to these programs.

• Lawyers are active in community-service organizations — more than 40 percent of respondents participate in organizations such as Lyons or Rotary.

• Over one-third reported giving their services to their bar association, church or local school.

• Hundreds of lawyers help with organized programs for youth, senior citizens, and less fortunate members of our communities.

• A significant number of lawyers serve on volunteer search-and-rescue teams, work as volunteer firefighters, and volunteer for relief organizations such as the Red Cross.

Added to this are the voluntary fee reductions made by lawyers to clients for whom paying the full fee would be a hardship. Fifty-seven percent of those completing the survey reported voluntarily reducing their legal fee by an annual value of approximately $9,000 each.

But the cold presentation of the facts and values of lawyers’ volunteer work barely tells the story. Scores of respondents added personal comments about why they volunteer and how good they feel to be giving back.

"Don’t forget to mention the hundreds of lawyers who choose to work for public-service organizations for long hours and low pay — that’s a form of volunteering, too."

"As I taper down my corporate practice I take more and more pro bono cases."

"I do voluntary mediations as a way of helping others."

"Since I quit practicing law, I give all my time to a missionary service for no pay at all — I thank my family for supporting me in doing this."

"I simply feel it is part of the responsibility of each lawyer to serve the public."

"Don’t forget to note the contributions of my family in allowing me time for pro bono work."

Many good ideas flowed from the survey. "Why not have a WSBA clearinghouse for worthy organizations to submit their needs for legal services to match up with lawyers willing to take on a project needing legal assistance?" asked a member. "How can we recognize the family support pro bono work requires?" inquired a number of respondents. We received many good ideas about better ways to capture the degree of volunteering lawyers do. More than 30 lawyers responding thanked the Bar for asking and caring about their volunteer service. Lawyers are proud of what they do for their communities, and this evidence shows they have every right to be proud.

There is a sad note, too, which accompanied many reports. In their own words, lawyers report, "I’m skeptical that documenting volunteer hours will affect the public’s perception that lawyers are greedy and unethical." "I’m resigned to the lack of appreciation and respect for my profession." There was a begrudging and cynical tone to some of these comments: "It’s just plain hard to fight against this public perception, and it wears me down," reported one lawyer.

Providing facts may help lawyers feel proud to be a lawyer, but may not change public opinion. That’s where public legal education and working to build public trust and confidence in our justice system come in. Meanwhile, take pride in knowing that 1,234 lawyers contributed nearly 250,000 hours of service in the past year, and many more continue to volunteer their time to their communities.

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