PRO BONO

Definition of PRO BONO:

To work for the good of the public rather than for a profit or income.

Investopedia Says: For example, working "Pro Bono" means you work without charging a fee.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

Requirements and Recommendations for Service:

Lawyers in the United States are recommended under American Bar Association (ABA) ethical rules to contribute at least fifty hours of pro bono service per year. Some state bar associations, however, may recommend fewer hours. The New York State Bar Association, for example, recommends just twenty hours of pro bono service annually, while the New York City Bar promulgates the same recommendation as the ABA.

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What you have just read applies to the United States and not Canada. This is to say that in Canada it is not recommended or mandatory for lawyers to give pro-bono service. Further pro-bono in Canada, unlike the USA is scarce, as no lawyers, unless it is a case of injury or else a case wherein a lawyer sees a benefit for himself, would take a case to advance the good of the country.

Whereas scoundrels are a dime a dozen in the USA, in Canada due to the amount of lawyers and the small population, you can just figure Pro-Bono services is not part of a lawyers curriculum, as “greed” is prominent in the Canadian legal profession, more so than in the USA. You won’t find a lawyer in Canada doing pro-bono work to protect the constitution of this country, or protect an individual whose constitutional rights is infringed upon.

Following is the written words of the late Dugald Christie, on the subject of Pro-Bono services. Justice4you could not think of anyone better versed than Dugald to give the readers inside information on the way the bar view the service of pro-bono.

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PRO BONO, THE BOTTOMLESS BOG

There are many law firm netting earnings of over ten million dollars per year that provide virtually no pro bono service. They may have a pro bono committee, Junior partners may be pushing for pro bono but the senior partners are not to be convinced!

Action continues to be stalled from one year to the next. Big firm lawyers are quite capable of cutting down small forests to create piles of reports, questionnaires, surveys, research grant applications, minutes and every imaginable document on the subject of pro bono. Their junior partners have endless committee meetings on the subject of helping the poor. All this can take years and meanwhile the firm does not help one pro bono client! The senior partners are against it! Dealing with such partners can be interesting work!

Some such lawyers have the attitude that clients too poor to afford a lawyer have brought their problems down on their own heads.

Once such a lawyer with the hard-hitting “they probably deserve it” attitude is persuaded to attend a pro bono clinic all kinds of things happen. He or she can do far more that the “bleeding heart” lay counselors who so often meet with the poor. There are no “nurturing smiles”.

Clients go in cheerfully expecting a certain result but you can tell from the muffled raised voices and the angry look when they leave that the lawyer’s advice is not what was anticipated. I have been a frequent spectator of such scenes.

Another reason why so many large law firms in Canada make such a small contribution to helping the poor is that their senior partners know that pro bono clinics are usually run with scant attention to conflicts, proper note taking or research.

Professional standards tend to be low and that can eventually drag down the firm’s standards. Once senior partners are satisfied these vital matters are adequately looked after in a properly run clinic they will often make a valuable contribution to the program.

Pro bono clinics need lawyers of both the “no nonsense” school and the “patience of job” school.

The lawyers that exasperate me are the ostriches! They are neither tough nor soft on the poor. They change the subject every time topics of access to justice or the plight of the poor are raised. They simply are not interested! Such lawyers may be outstanding members of the community. They may point out that they have contributed to the Vancouver Symphony and they have therefore done their bit! My answer to them is: by all means give violins to the Vancouver Symphony, but that should never take place of justice.

A lawyer should always place justice first. That is what the law profession is all about! It is not just a moral imperative but common sense. A musician whose passion is reforming the law is unlikely to be a good musician. The lawyer whose first interest id the symphony is wasting his time at the law office.

Unfortunately the number of lawyers whose first interest is something other than justice increase every year. One need only compare a modern issue of the best respected law journals with those of twenty years ago to see the change. Articles used to abound on ethical issues, recent developments in the courts and issues to do with justice.

Today the articles are all about marketing strategies, computers, billing techniques and ways of increasing efficiency, satisfaction and the take home cheque! The perspective of the profession has changed. Sometimes it seems to me that only a minority of lawyers see anything wrong!

The vast majority are totally bewildered by the public’s hectoring criticism of the legal professions and see the problem as simply one of public relations. According to them the problem would go away if the profession ever got its act together to invest the time, effort and money to “educate” the public on how truly wonderful the profession is!

The same attitude prevails as in the merchandising of Coca Cola; it does not matter if the product rots the teeth away or contains hidden quantities of caffeine and other harmful substances as long as everyone loves it and it makes lots of money! The thought that the only lasting answer to the profession’s public image problem is to acknowledge that the public is right and that things are fundamentally wrong is to most lawyers a ridiculous and dangerous heresy!

Some lawyer’ impenetrable minds see the crowding of the courts or increased crime as just things that happen, inevitable results of the folly of mankind having nothing to do with the legal professions!

Nobody is responsible except society itself! I do not buy that self serving argument! To hold all society accountable for the massive injustices of the court system is to avoid responsibility.

It is the legal professions, judges and lawyers, that are responsible for justice in our society and they tolerate widespread injustice to the maimed and the helpless to their own advantage. Change requires difficult decisions, time and money and the majority are not prepared to make such sacrifice! It is the lawyers who can afford to help the poor and refuse to do so that so often oppose funding of pro bono programs.

There is a hidden majority of lawyers who will not face problems of access to justice and leave it to their poor country cousins, who make a salary of no more than $25,000 per annum. Their fist interest is not justice. Their main interest is the country cottage, the children’s education, the cars, a host of “necessities” such as the club fees and most important of all the year end net!

I do not know of any lawyers in Vancouver who charges a contingent fee for as little as 19% other than for major claims. Many of my lawyer friends take more than $100,00 per annum out of their practice. Yet a proposed assessment of $100 per year to help pro bono was voted down on the grounds that it was too great an imposition on lawyers!

One of my lawyer friend takes home, before tax, approximately $110,000 per annum and is worried sick that he does not earn enough to pay tax, the boat’s necessities, his new car and a hundred and one other demands on his cheque book.

Another friend with his wife earns over$800.000 per annum and he complains in sincere bewilderment that he is not high spender but he does not know where the money goes! He does not have enough to set aside enough for the years of retirement ahead.

Both these lawyers do a lot of work for the poor and so I am not reproaching them in any way. I am simply pointing out that the best of us can easily become slaves to money and it has little to do with the net income. I know I have been in the dilemma earlier in my life.

On the other hand I see exactly the same inability to properly deal with money persons who are at the other end of the scale and have hardly a penny to their name. When I was in practice I made a point of letting the client know in writing exactly how much the client could reasonably expect to receive from a judge if a matter went to trial. In more than one instances the client would become infuriated with me that I would not press for hundreds of thousands more. When I would not relent some clients would fire me or complain to the Law Society.

The theologians are right! Plain old fashioned greed is a besetting sin of almost everyone, myself included! The love of money is the cause of untold misery on the part of both the “richest” lawyers and the poorest of clients. In pro bono work the love of money is a mud that sticks to everyone’s shoes and unless participants are willing to act truly “pro bono” without remuneration, the best layed plans will be thwarted!

Dugald Christie/ A Journey into Justice

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