Legal News

Is Pro Bono Legal Work Self-Serving and Inherently Liberal?

By Dan Slater

UPDATE: Through a spokesman, Judge Jacobs conveyed the following message to the Law Blog: “Dean Chemerinsky’s article was evidently based on a newspaper article of my talk that grossly misstates what I said and think. Neither the National Law Journal nor Dean Chemerinsky have contacted me. I support, endorse and solicit pro bono work, and my talk said just that. The talk identifies abuses.”
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Erwin Chemerinsky, pro bono attorney for Leandro Andrade, challenged California

At a Federalist Society meeting earlier this month, Dennis Jacobs (pictured, right), the chief judge of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, reportedly took some serious pot shots at pro bono work. According to reports, he labeled it “anti-social” and “self-serving,” and said law firms use it as a recruitment tool, while lawyers use it as a means of expanding courts’ reach into legislative matters. (Come on, Judge Jacobs, tell us what you really think!)

As you can imagine, the comments ticked off many, but perhaps no one more than Erwin Chemerinsky, the dean of University of California, Irvine School of Law and the distinguished editor of the LB’s Con law casebook, which we still reference from time to time.

In the October 27 issue of the NLJ, Dean Chemerinsky returns Jacobs’ fire, writing that the judge “should be ashamed of himself.”

He writes:

There are so many pressures on lawyers, especially economic ones, that make this difficult. Now the prestigious chief judge of the 2d Circuit has told attorneys that pro bono work is a bad idea and that they can feel good about not doing any. . . .Jacobs’ comments reflect his ignorance of the tremendous good that lawyers do every day by helping those who cannot afford legal services.

What makes Chemerinsky the spokesman for pro pono? Well, for one thing, he’s helping to start a new “public law school,” according to an email sent to the Law Blog by a rep for the school, that will “emphasize public service, hands-on learning and interdisciplinary study.”

He continues:

Implicit in Jacobs’ remarks is the assumption that pro bono work is inherently liberal. That is just wrong. Much pro bono work has no ideological content, such as in helping a victim of domestic violence get an essential restraining order . . . Sometimes, pro bono work is in a direction conservatives applaud, such as in representing the property rights of home owners who want to challenge a city’s use of its eminent domain power. Sometimes, it is in a more liberal direction.

The Law Blog’s call to Chief Judge Dennis was not immediately returned. We’ll of course let you know if and when we hear back.

LB Legal History: On an unrelated note, Loyal Readers will recall that Judge Jacobs once admitted, in a dissenting opinion he authored, to having not read the majority opinion. He began: “I concede that this short opinion of mine does not consider or take into account the majority opinion. So I should disclose at the outset that I have not read it.”

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on October 22, 2008 (boomark / email).