ABA Helps Lawyers Overcome Impediments To Public Service

CHICAGO, Nov. 8, 2005 – Most lawyers want to do more public service, as evidenced by the thousands volunteering to help victims of this year’s hurricanes.  Balancing work responsibilities with the desire to volunteer can be difficult, though, and lawyers are searching for ways to overcome impediments to pro bono and public service.

The American Bar Association’s new Pro Bono and Public Service Best Practices Resource Guide can help.  An online database of model pro bono and public service programs from all practice areas, the guide is a valuable tool for lawyers wanting to increase service opportunities.  The guide is available at www.abanet.org/renaissance.

“The demands of modern law practice can make it hard for lawyers to do the public service they want to do.  This guide helps them develop workplace pro bono and public service programs to overcome such stumbling blocks,” said ABA President Michael S. Greco.  “Because this year’s hurricanes left thousands of Gulf Coast residents with serious and lasting legal problems, it is more important than ever that we give lawyers the tools to volunteer their services to those who need them.”

The guide is a project of the ABA Commission on the Renaissance of Idealism in the Legal Profession.  Led by Honorary Co-chairs U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Theodore C. Sorensen, special counsel to President John F. Kennedy, and chaired by Mark D. Agrast of Washington, D.C., Greco appointed the commission this year to foster workplace policies and practices that enable lawyers to do more pro bono and public service.

The guide is a clearinghouse of information on successful pro bono and public service programs.  Lawyers interested in beginning or improving such initiatives at their workplace may use best practices in the guide as models, drawing on other lawyers’ ideas and experiences.  The guide may be searched online by keyword and by three categories: initiative type, such as strategic planning or resource development; practice setting, such as corporate counsel or law firms; and partnership type, such as projects with bar associations or law schools.

In addition, lawyers who have implemented effective pro bono programs and public service projects are encouraged to submit them online for inclusion in the guide so their good ideas may benefit others in the profession and people in need of legal services.  Currently, the guide contains more than 160 best practices from all practice areas.

Despite the hard work of pro bono and legal aid lawyers, most poor people cannot obtain a lawyer when they need one.  The most recent ABA study on access to legal services found that 80 percent of the legal needs of the poor go unmet annually, and a Legal Services Corporation study released this year, “Closing the Justice Gap,” yielded similar results.  Devastation wrought by hurricanes this year – the legal reverberations of which will be felt for years – compounded this severe need for greater access to legal services by the poor.  The best practices guide is an effort to mitigate this need by freeing lawyers to do more pro bono activity.

Aside from efforts to increase pro bono work generally, the ABA has numerous initiatives to help people affected by the hurricanes, including legal assistance hotlines created jointly with FEMA, mobilization of pro bono lawyers to provide legal services, resources for lawyers providing legal assistance to people in need and support for lawyers themselves displaced by the storms.

The American Bar Association Commission on the Renaissance of Idealism in the Legal Profession was appointed this year by ABA President Michael S. Greco to develop policies and practices that help lawyers strike a better balance in their lives and law practices, allowing them to perform public service, volunteer legal assistance to those in need, help improve their communities and find greater fulfillment in their legal careers.

With more than 400,000 members, the American Bar Association is the largest voluntary professional membership organization in the world.  As the national voice of the legal profession, the ABA works to improve the administration of justice, promotes programs that assist lawyers and judges in their work, accredits law schools, provides continuing legal education, and works to build public understanding around the world of the importance of the rule of law in a democratic society.