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Editor's Column

A Mandate for More Pro Bono Service
By:  Chip Brooker

This past November marked the twentieth anniversary of the Texas Lawyer’s Creed and its mandate for professionalism, and this month marks “Pro Bono Month,” as celebrated by the State Bar of Texas. With that in mind, I decided that I should refresh my recollection concerning what exactly the Texas Lawyer’s Creed says about pro bono service.

Not surprisingly, the Texas Lawyer’s Creed places pro bono service front and center by addressing it twice in Section 1. The Texas Lawyer’s Creed states that, as lawyers, “[we are] responsible to assure that all persons have access to competent representation regardless of wealth or position in life.” The Creed continues by stating that, as lawyers, “[we] commit [ourselves] to an adequate and effective pro bono system.” Recognizing these statements as the aspirational goals of all Texas lawyers, I began to wonder how we, as a whole, are doing. The following statistics indicate that there is room for improvement:

• _{Texas has the second largest poverty population in the United States with over five million individuals living below federal poverty guidelines.}
• _{Texas ranks 43rd for providing legal services to the poor as measured by per capita spending per individual living in poverty.}
• _{Less than 25 percent of civil legal needs of low income Texans are being met because there is only one Texas legal-aid attorney for every 11,512 Texans living in poverty.}
• _{IOLTA funding in Texas—which is a primary source of legal aid budgets—has fallen from over $20M in 2007 to less than $2M in 2009 as a result of falling interest rates.}

In an effort to address these issues, TYLA is introducing a new project called Partnering for Pro Bono, which is a web-based, sustainable program that partners in-house counsel with law firm lawyers in an effort to increase the provision of pro bono legal services in Texas. For more details, this month’s edition of eNews highlights Partnering for Pro Bono as the Feature TYLA Project.

Partnering for Pro Bono promises to be a win-win for everyone involved. TYLA hopes that the project will increase the number of pro bono cases handled on an annual basis by making it easy for in-house counsel and private attorneys to collaborate and address the legal needs of low-income Texans. Attorneys will no longer have to carry the responsibility of a pro bono assignment alone, and in fact, the possibility exists that Partnering for Pro Bono will create valuable and lasting business relationships. Hopefully, the benefits of Partnering for Pro Bono will provide the incentive necessary for more Texas lawyers to try to achieve the aspirational goals set by The Texas Lawyer’s Creed.