August 2006

Pro Bono Publico: What Have You Done (Reported) Lately?

by Dan Young

What did former presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton have in common? They each made an appeal to volunteerism to help the nation's poor: the senior Bush in his "thousand points of light" acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention in 1988, and Clinton in creating the community-service-oriented AmeriCorps program.

Lawyers have a special responsibility to engage in similar volunteerism: service pro bono publico. This special responsibility has been recognized by the bar's history of nearly 400 years of pro bono service. Although the legal landscape has changed considerably from the 1600s in England to modern times in America, Reginald Heber Smith's classic observation in Justice and the Poor (1919) that "the rich and poor do not stand on an equality before the law" remains true today. The American Bar Association Task Force on Access to Civil Justice recently noted that more than 50 million people have incomes so low that they are eligible for legal services from Legal Services Corporation-funded programs, and "millions more survive on incomes so low they cannot afford lawyers when in serious legal jeopardy."1

Closer to home, the Task Force on Civil Equal Justice Funding sponsored by the Washington State Supreme Court concluded in its Civil Legal Needs Study of 2003 that approximately 87 percent of low-income households in Washington state experience a civil legal problem each year, with some experiencing several problems. Frequently these problems relate to matters affecting core issues — shelter, income sustenance (either through employment or government benefits), safety, access to appropriate healthcare, child custody, and domestic violence. Altogether, low-income people have more than a million important legal problems a year. The injustice is that low-income people face 88 percent of their legal problems without help from a lawyer.

There is a network in place to try to deal with these unmet legal needs. The Washington State Alliance for Equal Justice, composed of Columbia Legal Services; the Northwest Justice Project; and specialty legal services programs such as TeamChild, Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, Unemployment Law Project, and county pro bono programs, delivers legal services to those needing it. The Access to Justice Board (ATJ), established by our state Supreme Court, develops policy for addressing and meeting the civil legal needs of the poor. The ATJ Board has a standing committee, the Equal Justice Coalition, which acts as the principal voice of the Board and the Alliance on matters relating to funding legal-aid programs. The WSBA hosts and funds the ATJ Board and its committees, whose aim is to eliminate the barriers impeding the poor's access to civil legal services.

Ultimately, all of these legal services have to be provided by individual lawyers — those in private practice, a corporate environment, the Attorney General's Office, or a legal-services organization. The ATJ Board has very recently revised the State Plan adopted in 1999 to implement the delivery of legal aid to low-income people in Washington. This plan supports the efforts of volunteer lawyers to provide free legal aid to low-income people across the state.

Most lawyers are aware of the implementation of RPC 6.1, which asserts that "[e]very lawyer has a professional responsibility to assist in the provision of legal services to those unable to pay." A lawyer should "aspire" to a goal of at least 30 hours per year of pro bono work. Although the rule does not explicitly favor (a) direct representation of, and advice to, clients over (b) bar committee work, giving advice to general nonprofit organizations, etc., only the former category has a direct impact upon those low-income individuals faced with pressing legal problems.

How can you fulfill this aspirational goal? First, you obviously have to find a low-income client who needs the legal services you are able to provide. The public-service Advocate Resource Center, known as the ARC,  makes available on its website (www.advocateresourcecenter.com) the Washington State Pro Bono Opportunities Guide, a joint project of Seattle area pro bono coordinators, Northwest Women's Law Center, Davis Wright Tremaine LLP, Perkins Coie LLP, and the Unemployment Law Project. The ARC has available not only volunteer and pro bono listings, but also thousands of library resources, training materials in many subject areas, e-mail lists, and more. Membership is free and open to lawyers actively taking pro bono cases. At the ARC website, any lawyer desiring to meet or exceed his or her aspirational goal is only a few mouse clicks away from obtaining both an appropriate pro bono opportunity, and backup training and support in an area of law that may not be that familiar.  

Transactional lawyers may find a "no stress" introduction to doing pro bono work at another website (www.corporateprobono.org). This site provides detailed information on corporate best practices, in-house pro bono policies, and other pro bono resources. Business lawyers may also wish to volunteer through Washington Attorneys Assisting Community Organizations (WAACO) (www.waaco.com) (Be careful to pronounce the acronym "wahco," not "whacko"!)

Another helpful site is  www. probono.net, which is an online resource for pro bono lawyers across the country. The site provides online support and resources to its members, including news; calendars of training and events; volunteer opportunities, member-driven e-mail lists; and online libraries of training manuals, model pleadings, and other practice materials.

Law firms of all sizes have a major role in supporting pro bono opportunities for their lawyers, associates, and staff. The Challenge (www.probonoinst.org) asks participating law firms to follow a set of basic principles: support pro bono participation; focus on providing access to the justice system for those of limited means; ensure that partners and associates alike contribute; provide a broad range of opportunities for lawyers and monitor their progress; recognize the obligation of major firms to contribute financial support to pro bono organizations; and strive to commit three to five percent of billable hours to pro bono endeavors. Many Seattle law firms actively support pro bono work and some have accepted the Challenge. Has your firm accepted the Challenge?

Are you motivated to reduce gun violence or defend reasonable gun legislation? Then www.gunlaws.org may offer an opportunity. Are you concerned about the political situation in Tibet? Then  www.tibetjustice.org which works on international law issues affecting the Tibetan people, may beckon. If none of these organizations excite your passion, search a list of pro bono organizations by state at the ABA website (www.aba.net.org/legalservice/probono) or call WSBA Justice Programs Liaison Sharlene Steele at 206-727-8262.

Organizations at both the state and federal level also encourage pro bono work. Both the U.S. Department of Justice and the Washington Attorney General's Office have pro bono policies. Most law schools now have some type of formal pro bono program.

Volunteers know that those who give benefit far more than those who receive. In addition to satisfaction, those who fulfill their aspirational goal may even obtain tangible benefits: CLE credits. The WSBA Pro Bono and Legal Aid committee proposed in 1998 that CLE credits be given for pro bono work. The Washington State Supreme Court concurred and adopted MCLE Regulation 103(g) under APR 11, permitting up to six CLE credits per year in a combination of two hours of training with four hours of pro bono assistance to low-income clients. Many pro bono organizations also provide malpractice insurance in connection with pro bono representation.

According to a 2004 survey of 1,100 lawyers by the American Bar Association's Standing Committee on Pro Bono and Public Service, two-thirds of lawyers said they provided pro bono legal services to the poor over the previous year. They spent an average of 39 hours providing those free services. How do Washington lawyers measure up? It is difficult to tell, primarily because such a small percentage of WSBA lawyers report pro bono hours. In 2004, only 200 out of 36,000 Maryland lawyers did not report on their pro bono work. However, in Washington in 2005 only 3,777 of some 30,000 WSBA members did report their pro bono hours. While reporting is strictly voluntary, the number of pro bono hours is valuable in assessing the capacity of lawyers to meet the civil legal needs of the poor and in measuring our progress. It also helps tell our story to the public. There is no harm in the acknowledgment that lawyers have lived up to the historically high ethical and professional aspirations of their calling. As Senator Jacob Javits was fond of saying, "The quest for justice is man's greatest calling. "

The WSBA recognizes those lawyers who in 2005 reported 50 or more hours of pro bono work. There were 1,479 lawyers, or nearly 40 percent of lawyers reporting, who are eligible to receive a certificate of appreciation. Of those, 452 apparently either wished to remain anonymous, or simply forgot to write their names on the reporting form. So 1,027 certificates will be presented in recognition of the importance of those pro bono hours to the recipients, and the positive impact those hours have on access to justice. While we all have to make a living, if each one of us met our annual pro bono aspirational goal, and reported it, then the Bar as a group could feel proud of our collective efforts. Did you report your hours? It would be nice to demonstrate objectively that volunteerism in America — and among lawyers in particular — is not dead, and that our former presidents were on the right track. We can do well by doing good. 

Dan Young is chair of the WSBA Pro Bono and Legal Aid Committee. He serves as a director of Verity Credit Union and is a volunteer at the KCBA downtown Spanish legal clinic. Mr. Young is a sole practitioner primarily involved in litigating landlord-tenant, real estate, and consumer issues. He can be reached at danryoung@netzero.net or 206-292-8181.

NOTES
 
1.  Supporting Justice: A Report on the Pro Bono Work of America's Lawyers, ©2005 American Bar Association. Quoted by permission.