Foreword.

• Author: Kaye, Judith S.

For many reasons, I am honored and delighted to prologue this excellent report, Public Service in a Time of Crisis. I'll list just three of my reasons.

First, what an extraordinary primer we now have--a comprehensive textbook on how best to deliver pro bono services! One disaster is more than enough for a lifetime of lessons, and September 11, 2001 surely was the ultimate experience. But the fact is that for families facing homelessness, or eviction, or deportation, or foster care, or innumerable other life challenges, every day is also a time of crisis.

Here is a succinct, inexhaustible compendium of how-to's, and who-did's. Here is a nucleus of people who can speak volumes about their own efforts, they can identify others who labored alongside them, and they can help brainstorm about replicating what they did to meet other crises. I disagree with the report only in that it says it contains eighteen "lessons" for responding to a disaster. I see hundreds of lessons here for organizing, delivering, and overseeing pro bono services.

Second, what an extraordinary chronicle we now have--the Bar at its finest, its shining hour; thousands of lawyers, paralegals, and staff members, hundreds of thousands of hours enthusiastically volunteered for the public good. Would that this report could be appended to every headline-grabbing story of a lawyer's malfeasance, and to every book and article declaiming our lost and betrayed profession. This is the real story of the Bar, the real character of New York lawyers and their neighbors.

I am grateful for the chronicle not only as an answer to the cynics but also, for the future, as a perpetual reminder of the value, the importance, the personal satisfaction that comes from pro bono work. This is the complete answer to every lawyer who is "too busy" or "lacks the right experience." You aren't and you don't. We don't need another disaster to remind us of who we are. We can just pull out a copy of Public Service in a Time of Crisis.

My third reason is the extraordinary opportunity I now have simply to say thank you. Thank you to the dedicated, resourceful, courageous individuals, firms, and organizations who gave their time, resources, and skills in the aftermath of 9/11. That same spirit of helping others motivated this report, for which I express profound thanks to its Project Manager, Matthew L. Moore, and to its three principal sponsors: the Association of the Bar of the City of New York Fund, Inc., the Louis Stein Center for Law and Ethics of the Fordham University School of Law, and the NALP Foundation for Law Career Research and Education. And thank you to every single person--they're named in the Acknowledgments--who brought this terrific project to fruition.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

In mid-2002, the three sponsors of...