Pro Bono, Public Interest, Small Law Firms

Reinventing The Law Business: A Word About Pro Bono

Should pro bono be a requirement of lawyers? Managing partner Bruce Stachenfeld shares his perspective.

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I want to say a word about pro bono. Actually, this is the first installment of a two-part series on this issue.

My firm is a bit new in this area. We are just starting out our pro bono programs, while some of the other firms (mainly the big firms that have been around for some time) are leaders, and I give a sincere “hats off” to those law firms. So I hope I don’t appear unqualified to speak here for a moment. What I am about to say is possibly not what you would expect.

I want to diverge for a moment and talk about what it means to be a good person, at least in my humble view. I am sure there are some psychological concepts going on here that I don’t really have a handle on, but at heart I think we human beings mostly act in our self-interest. This starts by avoiding starvation and health problems. It then extends to providing for our families and that sort of thing. Then it moves on to success, possibly in the business world, or other forms of success. Finally, once we have achieved everything we need or want (however we define that), we look around for what is more, and many of us think that the highest level is improving the lives of those around us.

Indeed, even those known as the “robber barons” of the early nineteenth century became some of the greatest philanthropists. In this regard, the biography of John D. Rockefeller is particularly illuminating. Rockefeller spent the first half of his life creating the modern “trust” (or monopoly) and ruthlessly running an oil business that had little or no goal other than making incredible profits at the expense of those in his way. Yet the second half of his life – he lived to be almost 100 – was spent literally creating the modern concept of philanthropic giving and achieving unprecedented results in human health and education. Maybe after taking over the business world and achieving unimaginable wealth, what else was there left to do but improve society?

So what does this have to do with pro bono in the law? I will get there in a moment – bear with me here.

The point of the above is that we humans all along the way are doing things that we need to do or want to do. And why is the highest level uplifting the lives of those around us? Personally, I think the reason is that we don’t “have to” do it. It is something that we get joy from because we don’t “have to” do it.

When you give a gift to your wife – husband – on her birthday, she is very happy. But, the look on her face when, for no reason at all, you just show up with flowers as a surprise and say “Honey, you are just about the best wife a man could ever have – boy am I lucky to be with you,” the look on her face is positively beatific.

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The joy of giving is that you don’t “have to” do it. At least that is the feeling for me.

So now let’s talk about pro bono. Pro bono is something that many lawyers do. And, many of us get huge joy out of it. We feel proud, happy, and joyful that we did something great for someone else.

Yet there are moves to make pro bono a “requirement” in the legal community. Already we have Rule 520.16 of the Rules of the Court of Appeals, which includes a requirement that new applicants who successfully pass the bar exam in New York demonstrate that they have performed 50 hours of qualifying pro bono service before applying for admission to practice. And there are various discussions ongoing about whether to expand these requirements to practicing attorneys as well. I think going down this road further is a mistake. Instead of lawyers doing things that they are proud of and eager and happy to do, pro bono will basically just become an “obligation for lawyers – effectively a “tax.” We will “have to” do this.

When I say this I want to say I am NOT even remotely trying to reduce the pro bono activities of lawyers. The thoughts I am espousing here are, in my view, destined to increase – not decrease – the total amount of pro bono handled by lawyers. And, at the same time, also increase the quality of it.

What do people do when they “have to” do things? They go through the motions. They avoid it, if possible. They game the system. They find ways of satisfying their “requirement” in as de minimis manner as possible.

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What do people do when they don’t have to do good things? Well, admittedly, some people just don’t do those things. Maybe they are struggling themselves or maybe they are lazy – everyone is different. But many people do a lot more when they are proud of what they are doing and eager to do it, and moreover eager to get others to do it with them. It mutates from something they like doing to a cause célèbre.

In this regard, I applaud those players who have turned pro bono activities into part of the informal ranking system for law firms – in that law firms that have a strong pro bono commitment are somehow “better” than those who do not. I think that is a great thing and should be continued.

I urge our profession to continue what we have been doing – by making it clear that we lawyers are benefited by a society that allows us to make a good living as lawyers – and, accordingly, each lawyer has a moral obligation to improve society with pro bono work. I also urge us to continue ranking law firms by their pro bono commitment.

However, I urge us to reject the idea of making this an obligation. For me it will certainly take the fun out of it. It will no longer be something to be proud of – it will just be a tax.

This is a two-part series of articles. In the next article, I will give some thoughts on what I think pro bono “could” be for a law firm that I think is not a mainstream way of thinking.

Bruce Stachenfeld is the managing partner of Duval & Stachenfeld LLP, which is an approximately 70-lawyer law firm based in midtown Manhattan. The firm is known as “The Pure Play in Real Estate Law” because all of its practice areas are focused around real estate. With 50 full-time real estate lawyers, the firm is one of the largest real estate law practices in New York City. You can contact Bruce by email at thehedgehoglawyer@gmail.com.

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