Pumping up passion for pro bono.

• Author: White, John G., III
• Position: Florida - President's page

PARALEGAL In the shortest acceptance speech in the history of the Tobias Simon Pro Bono Service Award, 80-year-old civil rights crusader Maurice Wagner said at the 2002 ceremony: "I started back in 1950 and here we are 52 years later. I didn't know anyone was watching."

The Florida Supreme Court and The Florida Bar's Standing Committee on Pro Bono Legal Services have been watching.

Applauding the passion for pro bono in lawyers like Wagner, they noticed with alarm that while the number of Florida lawyers increases each year, those providing free legal services to the poor falls flat.

So they commissioned a study paid by a grant from The Florida Bar Foundation. Among its findings:

* "Florida's Rules of Professional Conduct for attorneys have an aspirational goal that each attorney annually provide 20 hours of pro bono legal services for the poor or contribute $350 to a legal aid organization in lieu of services. ... Of the in-state attorneys who completed the report in 2000 and 2006, the percentage reporting pro bono legal service was stagnant at 52 percent."

* "During the same time period, the Florida pro bono programs for the poor reported a 30 percent decline in the number of attorneys who provided pro bono legal services through the programs."

* Seventeen percent of Florida lawyers do not bother to complete the required pro bono section of the Bar membership fees statement, and there is no consequence for noncompliance.

Those attorneys who gladly do their pro bono part often say: "I get more out of it than I give."

During her accomplished 44-year career at Carlton Fields in Tampa, Sylvia Walbolt became a shareholder and chaired its board of directors and appellate practice group. But ask what has been most satisfying about her career, and she will quickly tell you: "My pro bono work."

When she was honored with the 2008 Tobias Simon Pro Bono Service Award, Walbolt first thanked her law firm's "wonderful tradition of pro bono service," and then she said: "There was a recent New York Times article on the diminished prestige of our profession, and it talked about the fact that increased emphasis on the almighty billable hour is reducing the ability of many lawyers to perform pro bono service."

Indeed, many Florida attorneys bemoan that billable hour requirements leave no time for pro bono. One associate told the story of when she asked if she could take a guardian ad litem case, only to be told by the firm's partners: "We don't pay you to do...