The UCLA School of Law hosted a conference on Friday and invited lawyers and members of the public to discuss the ins and outs of pro bono law.
The school’s David J. Epstein Program in Public Interest Law and Policy and the Los Angeles Daily Journal co-hosted the conference, called “Rethinking Pro Bono: Private Lawyers and Public Service in the 21st Century.”
Catherine Mayorkas, the director of public interest programs at the law school, said 250 people registered for the event.
The seminar began with a welcome address from Michael Schill, dean of the law school.
“This conference could not have come at a more appropriate time,” Schill said.
He added that the School of Law has many leaders in the field of pro bono law, which is legal work intended to serve citizens with limited or no funds; thus, lawyers complete pro bono work without pay.
“The growth of pro bono is one of the singular achievements of the modern bar,” according to a UCLA law statement. “It is no longer simply a professional duty undertaken by individual lawyers, but an organized set of practices that leverage the resources of big and small firms alike in pursuit of equal justice.”
According to the statement, recent studies have suggested that pro bono lawyers provide at least one-third of free legal service to underprivileged people.
Schill said that School of Law has one of the largest, completely student-run pro bono organizations in the state.
“We have many of the leaders in the field,” he said.
Forty-six U.S. jurisdictions, including California, require lawyers to take mandatory continuing legal education courses to practice law even after they have passed the American Bar Association examination, according to the ABA Web site.
The UCLA law conference provided attendees with seven and a half continuing legal education hours.
Earl Johnson Jr., a California court of appeal justice, was present to give the keynote address at the conference.
“A keynote speech is often designed to set the tone,” Johnson said. “I’m going to try to give you history and background of why pro bono is so important.”
Johnson then said that pro bono services are a major resource, important to citizens and to the law community.
The rest of the day was filled with workshops and talks from important leaders in pro bono law, including School of Law professor Scott Cummings and Anthony Barash, the director of the American Bar Association Center for Pro bono.
The conference intended to bring together lawyers “both to highlight what works and to identify what more can be done in building a stronger pro bono system,” according to the statement.
Cummings said pro bono should be looked at as a critical program UCLA’s public service program.
The workshops looked at what exactly pro bono is and discussed specific case studies of coordinated pro bono, such as law professor Gary Blasi’s recent project, which investigated crime rates in Skid Row.
The good news is that pro bono service has increased since a 2005 survey, Barash said.
The average attorney, according to a study of a cross section of lawyers, provides 41 hours of pro bono work per year, he said.
He also said it is ultimately up to leaders in law to define pro bono.
“To a very large extent, pro bono is what we as individual lawyers say it is,” he said. “That’s where we have to start.”