Doing well by doing good.

• Author: McGrane, Miles
• Position: President's Page

After I was sworn in as president, I learned that The Florida Bar has many longstanding traditions. They are not found in our legal rules, nor can they be found in any employee manual.

One of those long-standing traditions is that only photos of the incoming president or the incoming chief justice of the Florida Supreme Court grace the cover of the Bar Journal.

In November, we are breaking with tradition for a man who broke the mold for great lawyers: Chesterfield Smith.

Smith, often called the conscience of the legal profession and a driving force in law and politics, recently passed away. The Florida Bar will remember him with a retrospective on his life and accomplishments in next month's Journal.

During his 55-year legal career, Chesterfield often expounded on traditions himself. Particularly, he was passionate about the profession's honored tradition of public service and pro bono representation--giving the have-nots a voice as unwaveringly strong and convincing in our halls of justice as that of the rich and powerful by providing access to the legal system for all our citizens, regardless of ability to pay.

In a February 1965 president's page, Smith wrote: "While the right of each individual to competent legal counsel exists without regard to the identity of the person who may need such legal service, whether such person be rich or poor, respected or despised, and regardless of his race, color, creed, or national origin, it is true that lawyers who defend an unpopular view too often are subjected to subtle annoyances and business pressures.... Certainly all lawyers everywhere who cherish our honored traditions of public service recognize that in the discharge of his responsibilities a lawyer must not be deterred by any real or fancied fear of public unpopularity. "

Chesterfield's commitment to those ideals continued throughout his long and energetic life.

Only six months before his death at 85, Chesterfield was still expounding on the need to provide access to the legal system to all of our citizens. In January of this year, he told a group of law students and lawyers attending a Public Interest Law Section luncheon in Miami that it was his belief that because lawyers have been granted the exclusive privilege to practice law, they should be required to provide pro bono assistance to ensure all Americans have access to the courts.

"Heretofore...