When Bill Pugh became the 121 st President of the Pennsylvania Bar Association this past May, he said his focus would be on three things pro bono, diversity and membership. Here I will discuss pro bono. As every lawyer familiar with Rule of Professional Responsibility 6.1, the term "pro bono," which is short for pro bono publico, is a Latin term that means "for the public good." Although the term is used in different contexts to mean "the offering of free services," it has a very specific meaning for us in the legal profession. Pro bono service enhances access to justice for the neediest among us. This ties in directly with the second area of strategic focus in the PBA plan you are reviewing: Service to the Public Priorities of the association include the promotion and support of the delivery of pro bono services to those in need and education of the public, particularly students, about the judicial system and the role of the legal profession in society. There are three goals in that area: Goal #1 - Assess the current level of activity and create a strategy to increase participation by attorneys in both pro bono and modest means programs Goal #2 - Identify opportunities for enhancement of the PBA s educational efforts to the public. Goal #3 - Promote increased funding for and access to legal services for the disadvantaged. In the limited time I have to speak here today, I plan to concentrate on direct pro bono service to the poor. Anyone who knows me well knows my passion for public education about the law and I encourage everyone to look at the PBA s Project PEACE program, especially its emphasis on youth courts. We are supporting a program by Edgar Cahn, the great social justice advocate and a youth court pioneer, next Thursday at the National Constitution Center. For many years, we supported a Student Constitutional Rights Institute for Gay Straight Alliances at various Philadelphia area high schools. But I wish a more narrow focus today. The PBA focus on pro bono rests heavily on civil matters, though we recognize that the constitutional protections that provide representation for the poor in criminal matters also leaves areas of injustice. Chief Justice of Pennsylvania Thomas G. Saylor, in a April 2015 letter to Pennsylvania attorneys, thanked the lawyers of the Commonwealth for their support of civil legal aid and asked each attorney voluntarily to do even more to support access to justice. He encouraged every lawyer in the state to look at palawhelp.org and join paprobono.net, two websites we promote to help the field. The leader of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court also showed his support of legal aid by providing an introduction to each of ten pro bono videos which are now available for free viewing by pro bono lawyers. The videos, produced by the Pennsylvania Bar Institute, the PBA Pro Bono Legal Services Office and the Pennsylvania Legal Aid Network, allow pro bono lawyers to receive free CLE while getting important training in various areas of the law. In his introduction to the videos, the Chief said, "Every Pennsylvanian deserves their day in court, even if their ability to pay for competent counsel is limited. For that reason, this training
program facilitates a valuable service for citizens that only lawyers can provide and that is consistent with our professional obligations. The Pennsylvania Bar Institute s intent in creating this program is to assist you in representing a client in a matter that may be outside your regular areas of practice. I urge you to combine the experience and expertise of the speakers with your own background and skills to provide quality legal services to those who otherwise might go unrepresented. On behalf of my colleagues on the Supreme Court, thank you for accepting that challenge. Your work is important to those whom you will represent and, more broadly, in the fair administration of justice. I hope your experience proves to be personally rewarding and that you will urge your colleagues at the Bar to make their professional services available as well." Back in 2007, the PBA resolved that each Pennsylvania attorney should comply with the local/county or state bar association pro bono aspirational goal, expectation and/or rule, where the attorney s practice is conducted. If the attorney s local/county bar association did not provide guidance, the PBA asked lawyers annually to: 1) Take at least one new pro bono matter or continue work on an ongoing pro bono matter; or 2) Provide significant direct legal service on behalf of those who cannot afford representation, as defined by the local legal services provider or such regional legal services providers as may make use of the attorney s services. In addition to direct representation, such service may also consist of: a) Developing materials through the Pennsylvania Bar Association Pro Bono Office and Pennsylvania Legal Aid Network to be shared with pro bono lawyers on www.paprobono.net or with clients on www.palawhelp.org; b) Serving on a hotline or some other client or attorney resource panel for a legal services provider; c) Presenting poverty law informational programs for legal aid staff and/or their clients; d) Being on call at the courthouse or in a courtroom under the auspices of a legal services provider, a bar association or the court, to help any clients that qualify for legal aid in areas such as protection from abuse or landlord/tenant and the like; e) Handling matters at significantly reduced fees, or low bono representation, for persons who do not qualify financially for legal aid but cannot afford full legal fees, so long as this service is provided as part of a county bar association or Pennsylvania Bar Association program to reach this target population; and/or, f) Such other service needed by the legal services provider; including serving as a mediator or providing other alternative dispute resolution services, or 3) Make a significant financial contribution to a nonprofit organization that provides legal services to persons of limited means.
As guidance, attorneys may want to consider the ABA Model Rule 6.1 which suggests a yearly goal of providing 50 pro bono hours. I have been struck by the disconnect between the hours of pro bono service that is recognized through various reports that are published and the amount of service that individual lawyers tell me about performing. The difference is striking. There are many reasons for this gap between how much pro bono is reported and how much is performed, ranging from poor reporting tools to the desire of certain lawyers to keep their pro bono service private ( I don t do this for the publicity ). There is also confusion over what counts as pro bono. Direct legal services provided to a poor client who could not otherwise afford representation obviously counts. Giving money to a legal services program counts, too. In that way, every licensed lawyer in Pennsylvania has done some pro bono this year since $25 of the attorney registration fee goes to the IOLTA program to fund legal aid. Serving on a Board or helping provide legal services to a non-profit count, especially when the Board or non-profit provide direct benefit to the poor. Doing work for a client who ultimately does not pay does not count---that is just bad business practice but there are many lawyers who provide pro bono service by giving out very low bills to clients in need. Although there are a number of definitions for pro bono service available, there is no single definition accepted across Pennsylvania. A certain elasticity in the definition of what counts is seen as one travels county by county across our state, but the clear message of talking with those who work in poverty law is that the legal needs of Pennsylvania s poor are so great that pro bono efforts need to be targeted to assist the neediest among us. Bill plans to spend his year shining a bright light on the pro bono activities that many thousands of our members do every day. It inspires me every time I hear about the good work a pro bono lawyer has done. Despite the positive stories, too many people in need are turned away and do not get legal help. Qualifying families must fall under 125% of the federal poverty level to receive legal aid or the client must be a victim of domestic violence. Legal aid clients come from every corner of the Commonwealth. They are involved in disputes over the best interests of children. They face mortgage foreclosures, evictions, inadequate living conditions, denials of healthcare, and concerns over necessities of life. Still other clients experience consumer concerns, such as falling prey to predatory and sub-prime lending practices or being subject to improper repossession of cars. Often, clients are disabled and unable to provide for themselves. That many of those in need belong to the LGBT community goes without saying; despite legal advances, members of that community also often struggle with bias that impacts services. Statistics highlight the problem but in a field where money is tight, there is very little funding to document the problem, so research is both spotty and often dated. A national study by the federal Legal Services Corporation (LSC) demonstrated that there was a significant shortage of civil legal assistance available to low-income Americans. The LSC unable to serve study established that: For every client who receives service, one eligible applicant was turned away by a legal aid program. (A 50% service rate sounds good, but this statistic only references those persons who made it to or contacted the legal aid office. The vast majority of poor have little idea of where to turn or already know resources are limited.) Less than 20 percent of the legal needs of low-income people were being met.
There is one legal aid attorney for 6,861 low-income-persons. (The ratio of attorneys delivering civil legal assistance to the general population is one for every 525 people.) Pro bono alone is not the answer to Pennsylvania s access to justice crisis. Advocating for better governmental funding of legal aid may be another way lawyers can impact the field. Research suggests it is a win/win proposition. A recently commissioned study of the impact of civil legal services in York County indicates a $9 return for each $1 invested. For every $100,000 invested, another 120 families are served, generating an additional $900,000 in economic benefits. More than a quarter century ago, former PBA President Joseph Jones, Sr. led the first PBA Task Force on the Delivery of Legal Services to the Needy. The 1989 Task Force documented the great unmet civil legal needs of the poor in Pennsylvania and proposed many recommendations to help alleviate the pressing demand for help. The Pennsylvania Bar Association s Board of Governors and House of Delegates adopted all of the recommendations of the 1989 Task Force. Its model pro bono structure of local Bar Associations working with local legal aid programs laid the groundwork for the good work being done by lawyers across Pennsylvania today. In the spring of 1998, then Pennsylvania Bar Association President Leslie Anne Miller convened the Delivery of Legal Services to the Needy II Task Force to review the unmet civil legal needs of the poor, and to develop recommendations that would bring about meaningful change to this critical situation. The Honorable Joy Flowers Conti, now on the federal bench as a judge for the United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania, but in 1998 a private practice attorney from Allegheny County, joined fellow private practice attorneys Jeffrey A. Ernico of Dauphin County and Clifford Haines of Philadelphia County, as tri-chairs of the Task Force. Charged with the mission of improving civil legal aid in Pennsylvania, the tri-chairs worked with President Miller to pull together a highly diverse and talented Task Force dedicated to fulfilling the mission of Equal Justice for All and the duty to the poor of the Bar1[4]. They called upon leading members of the executive, legislative and judicial branches of the government, practicing attorneys from all areas of the state representing a wide variety of legal practices, interests and concerns, and project directors of local legal services programs, to lend their vision, experience and leadership to the mission of the Task Force. That call was echoed in 2013 by the Pennsylvania Civil Legal Justice Coalition, a statewide coalition of bar leaders, representatives of the public interest legal community, and other key stakeholders that was formed to work collaboratively on exploring and implementing strategies to improve access to justice and address the growing crisis in unmet civil legal services needs of low-income Pennsylvanians. The Coalition originated in parallel efforts by the Philadelphia and Pennsylvania Bar Associations to address the growing need for free civil legal services among low-income Pennsylvanians through bar-appointed task forces. The Coalition, tri-chaired by Pennsylvania Legal Aid Network Executive Director Sam Milkes, Public Interest Law Center of Philadelphia Executive Director Jennifer Clarke and Pittsburgh attorney Jim Crennan, facilitated three hearings, conducted by the Senate Judiciary Committee
and chaired by Senator Stewart J. Greenleaf, that addressed the following question: Civil Legal Representation of the Indigent: Have We Achieved Equal Access to Justice? The hearings were held May 7, 2013, in Harrisburg; May 23, 2013, in Philadelphia; and October 29, 2013, in Pittsburgh. The purpose of the public hearings was to explore and create awareness of the current state and scope of the unmet need for civil legal services by low-income Pennsylvanians confronting legal problems involving basic human needs. Senator Greenleaf called upon the Coalition to present findings and to make recommendations relating to improving access to justice, and to present those to the Judiciary Committee. The Coalition's report, based on the record of the public hearings, contains those findings and recommendations, including a call for fifty million dollars in additional funding for civil legal aid and the creation of a statewide Access to Justice Commission. Neither of those two main recommendations has been implemented yet but they do get people talking about the need for civil legal aid. While those discussions are going on, the need for pro bono service remains high. Like most things in Pennsylvania, pro bono is handled differently in different places. Just like the parable of the Blind Men and the Elephant, folks looking at pro bono in Pennsylvania see different things because pro bono appears differently depending on where you look. If you work in Dauphin County, your local Bar has a full time coordinator Sandy Ballard and a requirement that you do pro bono service. If you work in Lackawanna County, you have a stand-alone program, Lackawanna Pro Bono, Inc., headed by Sylvia Hahn, to provide pro bono opportunities. Franklin County lawyers have their own legal aid program so pro bono volunteers there can support Franklin County Legal Services, MidPenn Legal Services or the domestic violence provider, Women in Need. My hope is that every lawyer in Pennsylvania uses palawhelp.org and has registered or will soon with paprobono.net. These websites will show you the wealth of service opportunities around the state while giving you important tools for helping with civil legal aid. Wherever you work, and however you choose to do it, please give of your time to those in need.