Finding Your Calling: Pro Bono as a Path to New Practice Areas. Attorneys at all levels may wish to give back and serve the underserved. But few expect to find their calling

• Author: M.C. Sungaila
• Pages: 19-21

Appellate Practice

Spring 2020, Vol. 39No. 3

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December 07, 2017

Finding Your Calling: Pro Bono as a Path to

New Practice Areas

Attorneys at all levels may wish to give back and serve the

underserved. But few expect to find their calling.

By M.C. Sungaila

Lawyers do probono work for many reasons. Young associates may seek courtroom or

case-management experience through probono litigation. Attorneys at all levels may wish

to give back and serve the underserved. But few expect to find their calling or to find the

area of practice they want to focus on. I did.

I was a midlevel associate at a large Los Angeles-based law firm. I had just completed a

successful federal criminal trial where I had served as a key member of the defense team,

arguing and preparing motions and jury instructions, crafting witness outlines, and

preparing witnesses. This level of experience was nearly unheard of for a litigation

associate at a big firm, much less at my level. I was grateful for the experience. I enjoyed

arguing and preparing the motions and jury instructions and discussing legal issues with

the judge, but I cringed when witnesses endured withering cross examination from the

senior members of my team. We were working more than 300 hours a month and were in

trial far from home. I yearned for the “jazz,” the payoff for all this personal sacrifice. My

team members got it when they extracted a key concession from a witness or had a

particularly combative day in court. But those things were not fulfilling to me. I wondered

what would be.

I found the answer a few months later.

Another trial, thousands of miles away and years earlier, had ended in the conviction of a

small-town judge for criminal civil rights violations. But that conviction was subsequently

overturned by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Judge David Lanier handled family law and custody cases in the town of Dyersburg,

Tennessee. His brother was the district attorney, and his father was the town patriarch. It

seemed that if you wanted to get anything done in Dyersburg, Tennessee, you had to go

through a Lanier.

Judge Lanier was convicted of sexually assaulting female court employees and litigants in

his court and in his chambers, sometimes threatening to take their children away, rule