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| Yes | 63% | 484 votes | Total: 767 votes | |
| No | 37% | 283 votes |
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Add to FavoritesPracticing lawyers are supposed to be in the business of helping people. The problem is that not all people can afford to pay for a lawyer's help. This is especially true in today's economic climate. With problems such as divorce, child custody issues, and landlord-tenant disputes, to name a few, civil injustice is almost inevitable at some point for anyone. So if lawyers should be in their chosen profession to help people and to ensure citizens get treated fairly, why is it that only those with deep pockets can actually afford a lawyer's help?
It helps to understand the importance of pro bono work and to outline what should and should not be included in pro bono services. Pro bono, meaning "for the public good", should be the very core of a lawyer's reasons for entering the field. Note that pro bono does not necessarily mean "free", but most pro bono lawyers offer these "public good" services at no charge. This ensures that public interest is served, which is especially important to those public members with very little money. Even the licensing body, the American Bar Association, specifically outlines lawyer behavior, ethics, and importance of performing pro bono work. Lawyers should not be self-serving; instead, they should be of service. But of service when and for whom? Let's run down a list of common issues and how pro bono work relates to them:
1. First, let's get criminal activity out of the way. Those charged with crimes have no place in perceived entitlement to pro bono services. These generally aren't victims who need lawyer help, and if they do need help, they are Constitutionally entitled under Miranda Warning to have an attorney if they cannot afford one. This is known as "indigent defense" or "public defender" availability. Knowing this, criminally-charged citizens should have no right to private pro bono services. If they can afford one, they don't need pro bono work. And if they can't afford one, they'll get one anyway as part of their rights under law.
2. Now that a big chunk of pro bono hopefuls is eliminated, let's consider those who do need an attorney for non-criminal reasons. These people fall into two categories: Those who can afford to hire an attorney and those who cannot. Ability or inability to pay for a lawyer's services doesn't give one person's case any more merit than another's. A case with grounds is a case worth being heard. In the interest of this, lawyers should be required to offer a certain minimal number of hours per month as pro bono work. So let's narrow it down even more to address this issue:
(a) If one can afford an attorney, they have no right to ask for pro bono services. This is selfish and wrong because it takes available pro bono services away from those who really do need a lawyer but can't afford one. Therefore, any person who makes more than 200% of the area's poverty level can put aside enough money to pay for a lawyer. This eliminates another undeserving segment from the running to receive pro bono services.
(b) If one really does need an attorney's help in a matter that has left him on the short end of justice, but he cannot afford to hire a lawyer, he should fall into the tiered system of entitlement to receive pro bono services. The tiered system allows all people with a valid case to apply for pro bono services, but on a classification level according to actual need. This need-based system should operate in the following way:
(i) For people with a legitimate need who have resources under the area's poverty line, their applications are given priority for receiving 50% of the lawyer's monthly pro bono work hours. This ensures the most needy are also the most likely to find a lawyer on a pro bono basis;
(ii) For people with a legitimate need who have resources from 100% to 149% of the area's poverty line, their applications are given priority for receiving 30% of the lawyer's monthly pro bono work hours. This ensures that people who do need a pro bono lawyer are also likely to find one;
(iii) For people with a legitimate need who have resources from 150% to 200% of the area's poverty level, their applications are given priority for receiving 20% of the lawyer's monthly pro bono work hours. This ensures that people who need a pro bono lawyer could likely find one, but not as likely as those who need services but are far less able to pay for them.
Note: Notice each qualifying segment includes "with a legitimate need." This means that for cases without merit (frivolous cases), no pro bono work should be offered. In fact, the American Bar Association's "Model Rules of Professional Conduct" prohibits lawyers from clogging the Court system with frivolous cases anyway.
In summary, the question of whether lawyers should be required to provide pro bono services shouldn't be a question at all. Everyone is entitled to fair legal treatment, and if they can't afford it and don't know to do it pro se (for themselves), it should be available to them on a merit, income, and as available basis. Indigent people with a true cause of action deserve the same ability to seek justice as anyone else. Lawyers shouldn't have to sacrifice large amounts of what could be profitable work time on pro bono cases, but a modest amount of donated work, perhaps 16 hours per month (the equivalent of 4 hours per week), should be available to assist low-income people who are victims of injustice. After all, if a lawyer is supposed to be helping people, this is a great way to do that.
Learn more about this author, Shannon S. Harwell.
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No
Requiring all lawyers to provide pro bono services would be analogous to requiring every American citizen to perform community service. The idea has considerable emotional appeal, especially considering the damaged state of our nation's conscience, but it simply doesn't make economic sense. This is not to say that such a requirement wouldn't have a net positive effect compared to no action at all, but if the goal is to extract the most value in terms of beneficial legal expertise, a pro bono requirement is not the optimal solution. A better solution would be to simply require a tax within the legal profession, as part of the license to practice law.
Consider the case of requiring all citizens to perform community service. If everyone was forced to do it, what would the quality of that service be? It seems logical to assume that the work ethic behind such labor would be equivalent to the work ethic, or lack thereof, which failed communism. Surely we've learned from history that compelled labor is less effective than self-interested labor.
Fortunately, American government has already worked out ways to encourage charitable behavior within an economic system that primarily promotes greed. First, there are significant tax breaks for charitable contributions, allowing people to trade some of their material wealth for more intangible rewards, such as the gratification of helping others, improved public image, and elevated social status. The legal profession could design something similar, possibly by creating a form of income-tax reduction based on the number of pro bono hours billed.
But what has proven more effective in the American system is incorporating philanthropy into each citizen's tax contribution itself, which is more or less proportional to their income. Thankfully, our country's tax revenue isn't entirely spent on bureaucratic overhead, unnecessary wars, and questionable bailouts. Programs such as welfare, student loans, and even grants for scientific research and the fine arts are all examples of ways in which Americans have democratically decided to help each other and the greater good of all. The reason that this system works better than a lower tax rate coupled with a legal requirement that people directly work for their neighbors benefit, is that it is a better allocation of the citizenry's diverse talents. Rocket scientists shouldn't be required to spend a percentage of their free time serving soup at the local homeless shelter, but they should certainly be required to pay their taxes.
If the legal profession is serious about donating their legal services, it should be in the form of a tax, perhaps as a fee to the American Bar Association, as part of the consideration for the license to practice law. The ABA could then distribute the funds to public interest lawyers, who are clearly in a better position to provide quality legal services to the indigent than mass tort specialists or architects of corporate golden parachutes. This system would also be better aligned with the general policy of avoiding specific performance.
Beyond being economically unsound as a policy, requiring charity would also be a depressing commentary on the state of the legal profession's integrity, even if lawyers have done little recently to warrant any faith in their humanity. But since most Americans find it in themselves to give to charity, or volunteer some of their time, surely a few lawyers would be inclined to donate their services to those in need.
Learn more about this author, Hagana Kim.
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