Several factors motivate lawyers to do pro bono work

Many professions include some form of free or nearly free service to the public. Perhaps only attorneys describe what they do with a Latin phrase.

Pro bono (from pro bono publico, “for the public good”) may be spoken in a dead language, but it is very much a living concern for a large number of attorneys. Which raises the question: Why, in a profession that still bills largely by the hour, do lawyers agree to work for free?

“We rightly restrict the practice of law to trained and competent lawyers, but once we’ve restricted who can help to a single group, I think we take on a special responsibility as lawyers that somebody from that group helps,” answers Brian Hamburg, an attorney with Hamburg & Lyons in Springfield.

What motivates attorneys to do pro bono work? Pure do-goodedness? A way to get experience? Maybe just a way to convince the public that lawyers aren’t so bad?

Jolie Justus, director of pro bono services for Shook, Hardy & Bacon in Kansas City, said it’s often all of the above.

“If you find the right kind of pro bono project, you can truly accomplish all of those things at once,” Justus said.

Justus is in the middle of putting together a video on Shook’s pro bono efforts for its fall retreat. It’s the kind of project that demands reflection, as she interviews associates and partners about why they do what they do. Their answers, she said, continue to support a Missouri Bar Review article she wrote eight years ago, which argued that pro bono is also pro business.

Lawyers very much want to give back to their communities, she said. But young associates also are interested in getting “out of their comfort zone” and taking on the litigation challenges that pro bono cases might provide. Meanwhile, many experienced partners try to woo corporate clients who demand their attorneys show a commitment to public service.

“I’ve had partners call me and say ‘Give me a pro bono case.’ I’ll say, ‘OK, what kind of pro bono case?’ and they’ll say, ‘Doesn’t matter. I’ll take anything,’” Justus said. “I don’t care why you’re asking for the pro bono work, as long you’re taking it.”

Still, that sense of having done something good for its own sake remains a powerful driver. Crista Hogan, executive director of the Springfield Metropolitan Bar Association, said her organization’s strategy to encourage pro bono work is, like the song suggests, to “accentuate the positive.”

“It’s difficult to get inspired if it’s through guilt or obligation,” she said.

Hamburg, a former president of Springfield’s bar who placed a great emphasis on pro bono work, recalls a case years ago in which he helped a woman who had been placed under guardianship to file paperwork to restore her full rights.

“The ability I had, just by running some very simple paperwork through the system, to help her out in a way that meant so much to her, that certainly solidified my commitment,” he said. “For years I got cards from this lady annually, thanking me.”

Hamburg said he began taking pro bono cases fairly early in his legal career, a pattern that Justus has noted as well.

“It’s easier to get people hooked when they’re young, but once they’re hooked, they’re in,” she said.

(She also said many retired lawyers like to take such cases as well, particularly because the state provides malpractice coverage for those who volunteer through a nonprofit or government agency.)

Amy White has been a lawyer since 2008, but her pro bono work began when she was still in law school at Saint Louis University. When she volunteered with Legal Services of Eastern Missouri, she was handed a landlord-tenant issue. Four years later, she still works those same types of cases — both for Legal Servic-es, where she takes the side of the tenant, and as an associate with Crotzer & Ormsby in St. Louis, where she usually represents landlords.

“It’s interesting to see both sides,” she said. “It’s pretty easy to go from one to the other.”

White said she holds both a master’s in social work and a law degree. Pro bono work, she said, “was natural for me.”