Lawyers, by nature and by training,
tend to reach out to help others on a volunteer basis more than
people in virtually any other profession. This is right and
appropriate. As Norman Thomas said, "To us ... much has been given;
of us much is required." And yet, there is always more - much more - to be done.
This is reflected in a resolution, passed by our House of Delegates
in September, urging all to recognize the contributions of our
legal community to help those most in need and encouraging all of
us to do more to get involved in pro bono work and to financially
support the legal aid system.
I decided to start the month of
October (Pro Bono Month) by observing a typical day at the Hampden
County Housing Court in Springfield, where 85 percent of litigants
are unrepresented (also called self-represented, but the truth is
that they're unrepresented). The entrance to the courthouse was the
first important experience - the line waiting to get through security went out the
door and around the front of the courthouse. I briefly thought
about using my bar card to get around the line, but there was no
easy way to do it in that courthouse because there is only one door
(not two), so I would have had to cut in front of people instead of
walking through a separate line. The person directly in front of me
was in a wheelchair, by himself, so I decided to stay in line.
After about 10 minutes, we reached the inside of a courthouse that
was severely overcrowded. I went upstairs and observed two packed
courtrooms - one of which probably had more than 150 people in it,
with standing room only. Everywhere I looked, there was a pressing
mass of people: working-class people of all races and backgrounds,
landlords as well as tenants. There were people with obvious mental
and physical disabilities, and there were parents or grandparents
with babies and toddlers.
At this court, though, they have
developed an impressive network of organizations which are on site
to provide support services (legal and non-legal) for litigants.
This ranges from a Lawyer-for-a-Day program sponsored by the
Women's Bar Foundation and various law schools, to having a social
worker on site who can follow up to let litigants know what
government benefits they are entitled to receive. It includes
programs designed to help people find affordable housing, and it
includes programs that offer free clothing. Despite the outward
appearance of chaos because of so much overcrowding, there is an
area set aside as a much-needed retreat for assistance: a room
dedicated to meeting space for pro bono lawyers with any litigant
who needs assistance, and there were many, many people lined up to
make use of these services. If these programs didn't exist, it is
difficult to imagine how the court could function.
Tenants being evicted were expected
to fill out an Answer to the Complaint if they had not already done
so when their case was called; it is clear that many of them would
not have had an adequate reading level to be able to do this in the
most rudimentary way without some basic assistance. The pro bono
support offered, though, went much further than this and extended
all the way up to full representation in some cases. I observed a
mediation involving a woman with five children who was about to be
evicted for nonpayment of rent, but through the skill of one of the
court mediators, a weekly payment plan was negotiated, together
with an agreement for making some safety-related repairs, and she
and her family were able to stay in their home.
My impression of the day was of
inadequate resources in the face of crushing need, and yet, through
the hard work of many determined people (including at least a dozen
pro bono lawyers), the people who came through the doors seeking
assistance were able to receive a remarkably high level of
services.
Two weeks later, I decided to attend
the MBA's Dial-A-Lawyer for Veterans program
Once I saw that they needed
attorneys who could do triage as well as answer substantive legal
questions, I sat down at the phones myself. I was delighted that,
although I had to direct many calls to other attorneys, I was able
to substantively help an elderly widow who needed advice about a
surcharge from her auto insurance company. I was also able to set
up an appointment for one caller who had been waiting years for a
decision on a benefit application to meet with the appropriate
person at the Veteran's Administration. All of us there worked
nonstop, and there was so much work to do, I never did get to thank
most of the volunteers in person.
As a bar association, we put a
tremendous amount of effort into lobbying for adequate court
funding and adequate funding for legal services. This is an
important part of our mission, because it is the foundation for
ensuring access to justice for all. In an ideal world, we would
have adequate court funding, so that our facilities were not
cramped and rundown. In an ideal world, we would also have adequate
funding for legal services, so that everyone who needed a lawyer
for a basic human need (such as housing, family issues or benefits)
would be entitled to one. Until that time, though, we have a
responsibility to do what we can to ease the suffering of people
who cannot afford to hire a lawyer but desperately need one in
order to make justice a reality in their lives.
An important insight I've gained
into the nature of reciprocity applies to pro bono work. Many times
in life when we feel altruistic, we act by helping someone in hopes
that it will benefit the other person. The almost universal effect
is that the act of kindness or generosity is, in the end, a
blessing to the giver as well as the recipient. The key reason for
this, I believe, relates to the interconnectedness of all of us. By
strengthening our commitment to pro bono, now and throughout the
year, we are acting on the recognition that we are bound together
through our shared humanity. As Herman Melville wrote, "We cannot
live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us to our fellow
men [and women.] and among those fibers, as sympathetic threads,
our actions run as causes, and they come back to us as effects." By
acting on that insight, we will help make the world a better place
not only for the people we represent, but for ourselves as we are
changed in the process.
(see story, page 16), which allows veterans to receive free
legal advice in many areas of the law, including family law, trusts
and estates, housing and government benefits, to name a few. Since
I do not have any expertise in any of these areas, my purpose in
attending was simply to thank the volunteer attorneys that night
for their time. I knew that there would be 15 attorneys in a room
answering phone calls, and I thought that I would have time to talk
to them in between their calls. Wrong! From the moment the
switchboard started putting calls through, there were countless
calls stacked up waiting to be answered. The 15 attorneys worked
nonstop, advising one person after another and making appropriate
referrals from lists that were provided by the MBA. Officers from
the Veteran's Administration were on hand to answer questions about
benefits.¢