Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman of the New York Court of Appeals announced yesterday that, starting next year, all new lawyers in the Empire State are going to have to perform 50-hours of pro bono work if they want to join the bar. Considering roughly 10,000 attorneys apply to the New York State Bar each year, that's a half-million hours of badly needed legal help for the needy right there. Or is it just a tax on poor, defenseless lawyers?
"The courts are the emergency rooms of our society," Lippman said announcing the plan. When it goes into effect, New York will be the first state in the union to have such a requirement. And the state can use the assistance: "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 which deals with roughly 44,000 cases a year, told reporters yesterday. "This initiative will certainly help."
The idea certainly sounds like a good one to us, but we're not lawyers. We're sure you'll be shocked (SHOCKED) to learn that not all of them are loving the idea. To some in the legal profession, a call for mandatory pro bono work is just like indentured servitude.
