What would motivate you to do more pro bono work?

We are facing a civil justice crisis in our country. According to the Legal Services Corporation's 2022 "Justice Gap Report," low-income American households (about 50 million people) had at least one civil legal problem in the prior year and did not receive enough legal help for 92% of those problems.

The numbers are overwhelming when you think about how many people are at risk of losing their homes, their children, or their income without the benefit of an attorney to help. But we are innovative, and many advocates are up for the challenge.

Providing free civil legal services, either by working at a legal aid organization or by volunteering your time pro bono, is one of the most important actions you can take to help bridge the justice gap.

This week is the American Bar Association's Pro Bono Week, recognizing not only the importance of a lawyer when we're needed most, but also our professional responsibility to assist in meeting that need by providing a minimum of 50 hours of pro bono legal services every year. Your local Bar Association may be hosting special events, your local legal aid organization may be asking for your help at a clinic, and you may see special recognition of the lawyers in our community who are stepping up. 

For over the past decade, I have led the Legal Aid Association of California. We work in close partnership with legal aid nonprofits across the state, the State Bar of California, the California courts, and the legislature on issues that impact access to justice in our state. We've had amazing success in activating champions in the legislature who have increased funding for civil legal aid. These funds have allowed legal aid nonprofits to hire more attorneys, social workers, and other advocates, but we will never have enough legal aid attorneys in our state to meet the need. We would need hundreds of millions of dollars in new funding and far more law school graduates choosing a career in legal aid than are ever possible.

This year, my organization sponsored AB 2505 (Gabriel), which was signed by our Governor last month. Our bill does not ask you to do pro bono work. Our bill doesn't tell you how or where to use your legal training to help others. Our bill doesn't even tell you you're a good person for doing pro bono work (but we know you are). What our bill does do, though, is ask that you tell the State Bar of California each year how many pro bono hours or reduced fee hours you completed in the prior year.

We know not everyone tracks their pro bono hours, and likely even fewer track reduced fee hours. But we know you are doing the work. Many civil legal aid organizations' primary way of delivering services is through you--their volunteers. For instance, we know that many of you offer reduced fees for veterans or seniors, allowing them to pay for your services at a rate they can afford.

What we don't know, though, is where the pro bono deserts exist in our state. We don't know the demographics of attorneys who are more or less likely to provide pro bono services. We don't know if there is a difference between attorneys' pro bono work in their first few years of practice and in their last few years before they go inactive.

We know that legal aid organizations do not have the resources to fully serve their community, and we know they rely on you. That's why we are asking you to start tracking your hours. In 2025, when you pay your licensing fees, the State Bar will ask you if you'd like to voluntarily report your 2024 hours. This will give you a chance to see how easy it is to report. In 2026, you'll be required to report your 2025 hours.

We worked with the California Lawyers Association on this bill to address concerns they'd heard, largely around attorneys not yet tracking their hours or worry about the information being made public. The bill includes language that protects it even from public records requests. The State Bar will, however, be able to use the data in the aggregate and tell us a lot about pro bono in our state. We will know for the first time how many attorneys are meeting our 50-hour obligation. Assemblymember Gabriel also created carve-outs for certain employment types that may make pro bono work more difficult or prohibited. We also included an option for those who didn't track their hours, though we hope that changes in the future.

For many of us who are interested in ways to form new habits, we know that tracking our progress not only makes us aware of what we were already doing, but also helps entrench those behaviors as habits, whether it's doing more yoga, reading more books, or limiting our time on our phones. Tracking many aspects of our lives is so normal for many of us, so we think tracking pro bono hours shouldn't be too big of a stretch, especially since it will have a big impact on our collective understanding of the pro bono landscape. It also gives visibility to the great work that many attorneys are already doing, and could inspire those on the sidelines, too. Ultimately, we see a path forward where you are tracking your hours and reporting them to our State Bar so that you can see what a difference you are making because that difference is what matters most in the lives of those who would otherwise likely not have access to legal help. Thank you for being part of the solution to our state's justice gap.