Doing Our Part: Joining the Pro Bono Community

• Publication year: 1997
• Pages: 55

26 Colo.Law. 55 Colorado Lawyer 1997.

1997, November, Pg. 55. Doing Our Part: Joining the Pro Bono Community

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55

Vol.26, No. 11, Pg. 55

The Colorado Lawyer
November 1997
Vol. 26, No. 11 [Page 55]

Departments
Legal Services News
Doing Our Part: Joining the Pro Bono Community
by Barbara G. Chamberlain, Steven C. Choquette

We make a living by what we get.
We make a life by what we give.
--Winston Churchill

Amid widening income gaps, cynicism about the legal profession, and abundant social ills, there is no better time for lawyers to recommit themselves to assuring that our civil justice system really is about "liberty and justice for all." Throughout Colorado, pro bono programs offer opportunities for lawyers to assist indigent clients in securing access to that system, thus assuring that justice is accessible to all Coloradans. Each lawyer can contribute Each pro bono program can offer training or other assistance The rewards are great

Needs and issues vary from county to county and court to court. However, the experience of the Thursday Night Bar Program ("TNB") illustrates in general how a program can help attorneys to help low-income clients and, in turn, help the civil justice system.

The Thursday Night Bar Program

In 1967, several Denver-area lawyers had an important idea: to increase the access of Denver's poor people to free legal services and the courts. Some of their names may be familiar: Bill DeMoulin, Don Giacomini, Garth Grissom, and Don Hoagland. In an era of "ask what you can do for your country," they did ask. They also answered; they volunteered each Thursday evening to provide competent, compassionate legal assistance to indigent Denverites who had nowhere else to turn.

Thus, the Thursday Night Bar of Metropolitan Denver was born. Since those early years, the TNB has undergone immense change. It is now the flagship pro bono program of the Denver, Adams, Arapahoe, Douglas-Elbert, and First Judicial District (Jefferson and Gilpin) County Bar Associations, has a full-time staff of three, and serves the state's most populous region. It provides legal services in the areas of family law, bankruptcy, consumer contracts, landlord-tenant disputes, wills, guardianships, conservatorships, immigration, real estate, and tax.

TNB currently refers over 1,500 indigent clients to lawyers each year. That would have been a lot in 1967, but in 1997 the need is far greater. Due to a combination of increasing poverty,1 declining public benefits, and a burgeoning metropolitan population, there have been months when TNB has had a backlog of over 100 cases. Moreover, there has been a 32 percent reduction of the Legal Services Corporation's budget by Congress. The resulting...