Albany, NY – Chief Judge Proposes More Free Legal Help

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    Albany, NY – New York will become the first state to require lawyers to do 50 hours of pro bono work as a condition for getting a license starting next year, Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman said Tuesday.

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    With about 10,000 people passing the New York Bar Exam annually, Lippman said that means about a half-million hours of free legal work yearly, mostly from law students. That should help fill “the justice gap” for the poor, working poor “and what has recently been described as the near poor” whose needs have risen sharply in a tough economy, he said.

    “The courts are the emergency rooms of our society,” Lippman said. Addressing lawyers, judges and other officials gathered for Law Day, he noted that only about 20 percent of the need is being met for civil legal services for the poor, though state support is up to $40 million this year and many lawyers already do pro bono work, now an estimated two million hours yearly in New York.

    Currently no states require doing pro bono work as a condition of admission to the bar, according to the American Bar Association.

    New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said the pro bono requirement, as well as other measures Lippman has instituted for the state’s courts, should help more families stave off mortgage foreclosures under better circumstances than the rest of the country. Since 2008, following the crash of the housing bubble, American families have lost $7.4 trillion in home equity, and foreclosures rose sharply, along with abuses like improper documentation and deceptive refinancing offers, he said.

    “In fact about half of New Yorkers facing foreclosure do so without a lawyer,” Schneiderman said. As part of a 49-state settlement with five major lenders, those banks agreed to establish new mortgage servicing standards and commit more than $25 billion. That includes $15 million that will be used this year in New York to fund legal services to prevent foreclosures, he said.

    New York requires 90-day notices to borrowers at risk of foreclosure, settlement conferences and that lenders’ attorneys sign affirmations that their documents are in fact accurate, a requirement in November 2010 that “drastically reduced” the number of foreclosure filings, Schneiderman said. Starting this summer, lender representatives at foreclosure proceedings will have to come with authority to negotiate, he said.

    Lippman said he hopes that the pro bono requirement will generate ongoing interest in that work by lawyers who otherwise wouldn’t do it, although 21 law schools nationally require it and most others have clinics where students can get experience doing free work under faculty supervision on issues like evictions, foreclosures, divorces and contracts, also possible at outside legal aid groups. “Pro bono service has been part of the professional lives of lawyers for centuries,” he said.

    “We’re turning away eight clients for every nine that come in for help,” Steven Banks, attorney-in-chief for the Legal Aid Society of New York City, said afterward. He said they take about 44,000 civil cases a year. “This initiative will certainly help,” he said.


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    9 Comments
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    CTJEW
    CTJEW
    11 years ago

    As many non-NYS resident take the NY Bar in order to do limited work in NY this requirement of 50 hours of free work before getting a NY license is quite unfair. I don’t live in NY, when I took the Bar exam, I went to NY on Tuesday and took the NYS portion of the exam, returned to my home state that night and took the national exam on Wednesday and my own state’s exam on Thursday. This is quite common.
    I had no desire to practice law in NY, and don’t, BUT the firm that was hiring me right out of law school had some important clients with business in NY and wanted all new associates admitted in NY. There is no way that while in law school I could have perormed 50 hours of pro bono work in NY (I was 3000 miles away) and I had never taken a single course in NY law. I learned the NY distinctions while studying for the bar exam.
    It is likely that this new proposal would not withstand a constitutional challenge (pethaps a commerce clause issue).
    I’m now 60 and have never had to go into court in NY. Like many attorneys I have a letterhead that says “Admitted in X, Y and Z” but a client in NY would probably be better served by a recent graduate of a NYS law school.

    misslydia128
    misslydia128
    11 years ago

    Good idea, now what about doctors and dentists doing pro bono work?????????

    KACHALSKY
    KACHALSKY
    11 years ago

    Let’s see, hard working Americans pay thousands and thousands of dollars in taxes 50% of which goes to the ‘entitlement class.’ Now, on top of that, they want law students to each do 50 hours of pro bono work to get admitted. Several times I have now been ordered to do ‘pro bono’ work for supposedly indigent people on divorce cases. Where do the judges get the balls to do that? Have they not heard of the 13th amendment which prohibits involuntary servitude?
    Here’s a novel idea, Judges: instead of ordering lawyers to do pro bono work to represent ‘indigent’ spouses, why not have Judges work for free on weekends and hear ‘small-claims divorces?’ Of course this would be held on weekends so it would not conflict with normal court hours and the Judges, like the lawyers ordered to work for free (under the noble name ‘pro bono’) can experience the pleasure of ‘investing’ (to borrow a favorite liberal term) what little there is of their free time to help the indigent class (by which I mean the men and women who work off the books and receive ‘Earned Income credits and of course lie about their income).

    11 years ago

    The most retarded proppsal yet of these progressive legislate from the bench meshugaim. Like Judith wants -doctors dentists and cpas should work for free. What about all the speech and nursing students? Retarded requirement unfair probably unconstitutional but may prevail as the chief judge is for it.

    RachelJD
    RachelJD
    11 years ago

    This is a noble ideal but I’m not sure that it is practical or enforceable. Law grads today are graduating with thousands of dollars in debts. Those lucky enough to find jobs have insane billable hours requirement, those who hang out there own shingle must put every minute into making their practices work. I believe in giving back but not in being “ORDERED” to do so. And as #1 says, many take the NYS Bar even though they do not reside here but their employers require NY Admission but the attorneys may never do any work in NY
    The whole idea of being ordered to work for free strikes me as unAmerican.