Shine On, Pro Bono Diamonds
“So shines a good deed in a weary world.””
As lawyers, we have a responsibility to improve the public’s confidence in the law. One of the ways we do that is by providing a portion of our services free of charge to those who might not otherwise be able to afford legal assistance. The preamble to the Tennessee Rules of Professional Conduct, section 7 states in part:
A lawyer should be mindful of deficiencies in the administration of justice and of the fact that the poor, and sometimes persons who are not poor, cannot afford adequate legal assistance. Therefore, all lawyers should devote professional time and resources and use civic influence to ensure equal access to our system of justice for all those who because of economic or social barriers cannot afford or secure adequate legal counsel.
Rule 6.1 prescribes at least 50 hours of pro bono legal services per year to further that directive. Part of our job is to strengthen the legal system by ensuring everyone has access to it.
Now, I like food and shelter as much as anybody. We work hard and should be able to reap the rewards of our effort. But that’s not much of a WHY. As idealistic as it may seem, we have a tangible opportunity and obligation to make the world better every day—inscribed right there in the rules of our profession.
Of everything I’ve done, one of my most rewarding experiences in the profession is an opportunity I had in 2018. I represented a mother and her children against an abusive father who had been awarded primary residential parent status by the trial court. We managed to get that award reversed, shielding the kids from further abuse by limiting the father to only supervised visits. I was paid a fraction of what it cost to handle that matter, so it was perhaps not what has been traditionally considered to be true pro bono work. But I knew going in that there was no way the mother could pay my regular fee, and she certainly needed to secure legal representation. Plus, the Rules of Professional Conduct encourage us to do such work by identifying “delivery of legal services at a substantially reduced fee to persons of limited means” as a category of pro bono service. I still receive pictures of the family and the children, who are now thriving young women and who, I hope, understand that lawyers take seriously their obligations to serve “for the good of the public.”
The point of that story is not “Yay me.” The point is that I got to do something about injustice for someone without the means to do it for themselves. That still keeps me going.
I hope you will reread the preamble and Rule 6.1 to the Rules of Professional Conduct today, and remember that you are both privileged, and called, as a lawyer to pragmatically serve the public good. That’s a WHY that should spring you out of bed every day.
