Social Conscience Trails Time, Money in Bigger Law Firms : S. D. Volunteer Legal Program Seeks to Add More Heavy Hitters to Roster

When Alberto Arevalo graduated from Stanford University Law School several years back, he had a wife, a child and a very large debt. So, like hundreds of other young attorneys, Arevalo hunted for a high-paying job with a prestigious law firm, ultimately landing a coveted post with San Diego-based Luce, Forward, Hamilton & Scripps.

But for Arevalo, the challenge of managing a caseload and competing with fellow associates on the long climb toward partner just wasn’t enough. Soon after arriving in town, he signed on with the San Diego Volunteer Lawyer Program, making room in his frenetic schedule for poor people in need of free legal help.

“I’ve always felt that an attorney has a special, professional obligation to those who cannot otherwise afford legal services,” Arevalo said. “ Pro bono work is something I simply feel committed to doing.”

Among his brethren at the large, high-powered legal firms of San Diego, Arevalo is something of a rarity.

While the Volunteer Lawyer Program has a bank of 820 attorneys it regularly taps to provide legal assistance on non-criminal cases to the indigent, only a small fraction hails from sizable, widely known firms like Luce, Forward. Instead, most of those sharing their legal skills with needy clients are probably those least able to afford it--attorneys who either practice alone or work in small, two- and three-partner operations.

No one questions the diligence and dedication of these Good Samaritans. But officials with the Volunteer Lawyer Program say the lack of support from San Diego’s large, established legal firms limits not only the volume of work they can handle but also the complexity of the cases they are able to take on.

Unlike smaller law practices, firms like Luce, Forward have resources--from secretaries and paralegals to substantial financial assets--that enable them to tackle complicated cases likely to result in long, expensive court battles. Moreover, a well-regarded firm brings clout to a case and gives the client’s complaint instant credibility in the eyes of judges and the community.

“Large firms are in a unique position to provide pro bono services because of their infrastructure and support systems, the expertise of their attorneys and the quality control that is built into their operations,” said Carl Poirot, executive director of the 5-year-old Volunteer Lawyer Program. “Unfortunately, our most active volunteers have not been heavy hitters from the big firms.”

Indeed, of the 1,070 San Diego attorneys employed by the city’s largest 35 law firms, just 10% are participants in the Volunteer Lawyer Program. They represent roughly one-eighth of the lawyers who last year aided 1,700 clients at no charge through the San Diego organization.

The numbers look still bleaker when San Diego is compared with other West Coast cities--many of which, it should be noted, have much older pro bono programs.

In San Francisco, one of two well-established volunteer lawyer programs exists solely to link attorneys from large firms with needy clients. Last year, 700 lawyers from the city’s biggest firms contributed time valued at more than $6 million. In all, nearly 20% of San Francisco’s 10,000 attorneys take cases on a pro bono basis--almost double the rate in San Diego.

Los Angeles County, meanwhile, performs nearly one quarter of the total volunteer legal work logged in California each year. Roughly 1,800 attorneys donate time through an 18-year-old program known as Public Counsel; 70% of those come from large law firms.

Pro bono is a shortened version of the Latin phrase pro bono publico, or “for the public good.” Although no state has a rule requiring attorneys to donate their help to the less fortunate, many lawyers believe pro bono work is their professional obligation.

The American Bar Assn.’s Model Code of Professional Responsibility spells out its position on the issue: “Every lawyer, regardless of professional prominence or professional workload, should find time to participate in serving the disadvantaged.”

When queried about their attitude toward the Volunteer Lawyer Program, partners in San Diego’s biggest law firms offer a variety of responses. Some say they are simply unaware of the program, which is sponsored by the San Diego County Bar Assn., the Legal Aid Society, the Lawyers Club of San Diego, and the University of San Diego Law Center.

More typically, they assert that many attorneys with their firms do perform pro bono work but have historically chosen to donate their time through vehicles other than the Volunteer Lawyer Program.

Joe Neeper, a partner with Gray, Cary, Ames and Frye, said attorneys with his firm--the largest in San Diego with 160 lawyers--lend their legal know-how to organizations ranging from the Rotary Club to the San Diego Planning Commission to the Chamber of Commerce, all on a voluntary basis.

Along more traditional pro bono lines, Neeper said Gray, Cary lawyers through the years have challenged intelligence testing by schools as culturally biased against Latinos; represented San Diego Community College students in a First Amendment matter, and assisted a professional journalists group--all without charging a cent.

“We have devoted most of our resources on an ad-hoc basis to those things that have turned on the individual lawyers in our firm,” Neeper said. “At all times I’ve been with Gray, Cary, ( pro bono work) has been viewed as a recognized voluntary responsibility of lawyers in general and one that our lawyers voluntarily discharge.”

Across town at Jennings, Engstrand & Henrikson, partner Larry Marshall said he is only vaguely aware of the Volunteer Lawyer Program and unsure whether any of the firm’s lawyers are active in it.

Nonetheless, Marshall said many attorneys with his 50-lawyer firm volunteer as “members on the board of directors of numerous community organizations.” Others recently donated time to help a birth-control clinic obtain a restraining order against abusive picketers.

“I’ve incorporated several organizations myself, including the San Diego Head Injury Foundation,” said Marshall, noting that he views volunteer work as “essential” to an attorney’s career. “Others serve on the Otay Mesa Chamber of Commerce or serve as special counsel to groups like Deaf Community Services.”

While leaders of the Volunteer Lawyer Program applaud such efforts, they believe large firms have an additional obligation to extend a hand to those in critical need and unable to afford legal help.

“I don’t mean to denigrate those civic activities, but we’re talking about helping people without any money who need basic services desperately,” said Paul Duvall, a founder of the pro bono program and its current president. “ ‘How do I get away from the husband who’s beating the crap out of me and my daughter?’ ‘Am I going to be able to stay in the U.S. or will I be sent back to El Salvador?’ These are the kinds of pressing cases we need help with.”

According to American Bar Assn. statistics, an estimated 22% of people living at or below the poverty level will need help with a legal problem each year. In San Diego County, that means 60,000 poor people need an attorney’s assistance annually.

“There’s a serious need there that is not being addressed through the federally funded legal aid program, our program and the other groups that provide pro bono assistance,” Poirot said. “We can’t help everyone, but we can do better than we are.”

The Volunteer Lawyer Program was formed in 1983 in the wake of budget cuts by the Reagan Administration to the Legal Services Corp., the federal agency that funds the representation of poor people in civil matters. In making the 25% cut, the President urged private attorneys to supplant the decline in services by performing pro bono work.

To promote the volunteerism, the federal government directed that 12.5% of funds allocated to the Legal Aid Society of San Diego and similar groups be used to encourage pro bono services. Thus, the Volunteer Lawyer Program was born, a board of directors appointed and an executive director hired to begin recruiting attorneys willing to represent the needy.

Initially, the program concentrated on family law cases--spousal and child abuse, custody matters and the like--and that remains its bread and butter, accounting for 50% of the cases. Another 30% of the workload involves immigration issues, from amnesty to political asylum cases, while the remaining 10% are an assortment, including bankruptcy and consumer fraud.

Trying to Broaden Influence

Poirot, who took over as executive director two years ago, has sought to broaden the program’s influence to groups he views as particularly vulnerable--among them AIDS patients, the homeless mentally ill and single mothers.

In conjunction with the San Diego AIDS Project, the program recently launched a weekly legal clinic for victims of the deadly disease. Attorneys at the clinics provide free help with wills, housing and employment discrimination matters and other troubles confronting AIDS victims.

The program also hopes to fund with a $10,000 grant a menu of domestic law issues, from obtaining restraining orders against abusive spouses to the enforcement of child support orders.

Attorneys who agree to provide free services receive free training in a given area--from domestic to immigration law--at seminars organized by the program. Such instruction allows the program to ensure their volunteers have a minimum level of knowledge of the applicable law.

While disappointed by the lackluster support so far shown by most of the large firms in town, leaders of the Volunteer Lawyer Program are quick to sing the praises of those that have made a difference.

At Procopio, Cory, Hargreaves & Savitch, one-third of the firm’s 40 attorneys offer legal help on a volunteer basis--a record that helped earn it the Volunteer Lawyer Program’s annual pro bono award a year ago. The firm has a pro bono coordinator, who dispenses cases to lawyers when the call for help comes in. Perhaps most importantly, the firm’s associates--required to log a certain number of billable hours each year--receive credit toward that number for time they donate.

Gary Wright, a partner at the firm and one of the Volunteer Lawyer Program’s founders, said the concept of pro bono work has “always been very well received at Procopio, Cory.”

“When you’re working in a large firm, doing large, complicated commercial transactions, it really gives you a different perspective to do this kind of work,” Wright said. “I always found it very satisfying.”

At Luce, Forward, Arevalo has sparked an interest among his colleagues in the program’s work on amnesty and asylum cases. Over the past year, nine attorneys involved in refugee rights work donated an estimated $64,000 worth of time, Arevalo said. In addition, free help came from paralegals, a librarian, secretaries, word processors, and messengers.

Another $127,000 in free time was contributed by Luce, Forward attorney Timothy Pestotnik and others involved in the AIDS project.

“I think it’s been a major commitment,” Arevalo said. “I’m personally very proud of the firm and those who have donated their time.”

Luce, Forward lawyers who volunteer are not given credit toward billable hours. But the work is counted toward another firm requirement--that attorneys spend a minimum amount of time each year on professional development.

An Appeal for Support

In an effort to develop a fruitful relationship with the top 35 firms in town, Ned Huntington, the president of the county bar association, recently sent out a letter requesting that senior partners grant Poirot an opportunity to make his pitch.

“I think the burden is on us to educate them about the importance of doing pro bono work and the benefits it actually can bring their firm,” Huntington said. “It’s my expectation that once we give them the opportunity, they’ll seize it and San Diego will do as well in this area as other parts of the state.”

In addition to the traditional guilt argument that lawyers have an obligation to donate their services to the poor, Poirot said he has several incentives to use in his effort to woo large firms. For starters, pro bono work gives young lawyers courtroom experience and direct client contact--two things many employed by large firms may not enjoy for years.

Attorneys who typically handle complex cases that last for years also may enjoy shepherding a simple landlord-tenant dispute from start to finish.

“I don’t want to glamorize it, but this kind of work can be very satisfying because you usually have a very direct impact on a person’s life,” said Wright of Procopio, Cory. “That’s something you don’t get in a banking or commercial real estate case that won’t make or break your client.”

And, while much of the work is nuts-and-bolts material that does not make headlines, there are occasional opportunities for good publicity--not to mention the stature performing pro bono work earns a firm among its peers.

So far, Poirot has had meetings with two law firms--both of which were “encouraging and receptive.” One partner--with Latham and Watkins--agreed to send a memo to associates, urging them to get involved in the program. The second--at Baker & McKenzie--agreed to present Poirot’s case to attorneys and encourage participation.

Neeper, Marshall and others interviewed, meanwhile, said they would gladly listen to Poirot’s appeal and, depending on their reaction, see what they could do to muster support.

Marshall noted that Jennings, Engstrand already is considering establishing a pro bono committee that would seek significant pro bono cases for the firm--mostly those that would have some sort of impact on policy.

A similar proposal is under study at Gray, Cary. Neeper said the firm may allocate a certain number of pro bono hours to each associate or volunteer a chunk of time to one organization.

Despite the promising start, Poirot and his colleagues face some some tough realities as they push for help from large law firms. Nationally, the pressure on first- and second-year associates at major firms to log billable hours is more intense than ever, largely because salaries for those positions have soared in recent years.

That trend, coupled with the oft-mentioned effect the “Me Generation” has had on attorneys’ interest in performing volunteer work, has had an impact on pro bono programs in Los Angeles and San Francisco.

“These have been hard times for volunteer lawyer programs, especially when you’re looking for help on the complex cases,” said Steven Nissen, executive director for Public Counsel in Los Angeles. “We have had to work a lot harder to find attorneys willing to volunteer their time, and it’s largely because in this era of big salaries, firms are looking more and more at the bottom line.”

Craig Higgs, a partner at Higgs, Fletcher and Mack, San Diego’s third largest firm, confirmed that trend.

“When I was recruiting actively for the firm 10 years ago, almost every applicant would ask about our pro bono policy,” said Higgs, who was among the founders of the Volunteer Lawyer Program. “Now, you very rarely hear that question.”