by Lisa Adams

Created on: November 26, 2008

As an attorney with 18+ years of experience in the public sector (prosecutor and chief judge) who is now a solo practitioner, I will say without hesitation that the goal and focus of being an attorney has not changed: to provide a valuable service to people. People are the lifeblood of a law practice; and people will give a greedy attorney a bad name and reputation very quickly. An attorney who does his or her job with a heavy measure of good ethics and compassion for people will soon have more paying business than they know how to handle. The problem is that many attorneys have lost sight of the service aspect of the profession, and have made the endeavor entirely dependent on how much money one can get out of a case or client. Money is always the wrong reason to go into the practice of law. The desire to help people is absolutely the right and only reason to do so. I would suggest that any attorney disagreeing with this assessment read Jay Foonberg's "How to Start and Maintain a Law Practice." It is published by the American Bar Association.

Face it, attorneys have always been an expensive proposition and inaccessible to most because of a ridiculous hourly rate. That is why the bar associations started making pro bono service a requirement. But each and every attorney I have ever known or worked with, with a few exceptions, welcomed the pro bono cases. And all of them took on many more pro bono cases than were "required." In fact, working in Indian country on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, I, personally, not only take pro bono work, I expect a lot of my work to be pro bono because people desperately need legal services but cannot afford to pay anything. I have the knowledge they need, so why shouldn't I offer them help? I also have clients who can afford my hourly rate and flat fee work. In the end, the pro bono balances out the fee work. So unless one devotes a practice exclusively to pro bono cases without the benefit of a grant, you literally have nothing to lose by taking on pro bono cases.

And the benefit to any attorney who handles a case pro bono is the happiness and relief it can bring to people who were at the end of their rope. Many of them have already called a few attorneys who wanted up-front fees they could ill afford; and their situation demands expert legal knowledge. It is true that many of these are criminal cases, but since personal liberty is a precious thing, they are the most critical cases to take on. It is true beyond any doubt that many people are arrested under specious circumstances. Often the person has done "something", but that does not necessarily justify the maximum sentence or fine. There are also many pro bono cases that involve elderly people. Some need wills drafted, or help with an estate. Some people cannot afford a divorce, but need a division of assets.

And any attorney will verify that just because you represent someone does not mean you have to "like" your clients. Liking a client is not the reason that you take on a case. Providing a valuable service is. So whether your client is J. Paul Getty or a homeless person does not matter. You treat everyone with the same dignity and respect that you would expect to receive. Again, any attorney who has been in practice for a while will tell you this.

There are a myriad things that an attorney can do to help people in a positive way. I may sound like a bleeding heart liberal, but at the end of the day, I know I have done the right thing...even if it means I might not get paid for my efforts. The "pay" I receive may be a star quilt or a nice dinner...or a thank you that is genuine. It doesn't matter to me because I love doing my job and I do it well, whether the client can pay or not.

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