Let’s face it folks. Our legal system caters to the rich and, on occasion, the middle class. Most of society cannot afford good lawyers, and are on their own navigating our legal system. There is a simple reason for this. Lawyers like to earn good money. It is impossible to do that serving clients who cannot afford to pay hundreds, or thousands, of dollars an hour.
I recently found myself pondering the ethics of a society which reserves good legal representation to the rich and tells the rest of the people to just suck it up and carry on as best they can. I realized that I had lived for so long in the world of ever-increasing hourly rates and Compensation Committees, that I knew very little about how the ‘little folks’ access legal services (or do without them).
I was also somewhat suspicious of law firms that promoted their pro bono initiatives. I thought that some of that was performative, designed to look good in their marketing. I questioned whether large firms even had the expertise required by the low-income crowd, or whether they would provide anything but their least expensive resources to help the less privileged, and then only do it to afford their junior lawyers some training opportunities.
In short, my own lack of effort on behalf of the less fortunate made me cynical about the motives of those who advertised their pro bono efforts.
I decided to reach out to Kirsti McHenry, the Executive Director of Pro Bono Ontario, to get a reality check on my assumptions. Kirsti was generous with her time and explained to me just how wrong I was. Apparently, there are thousands of capable lawyers in Ontario who donate their time and expertise through Pro Bono Ontario, and other programs. Who knew?
But my musings about doing pro bono work did not end there. I got to thinking about the argument that, as lawyers we occupy a privileged place in society, and benefit handsomely from it, so we should give back by contributing our skills to help the less fortunate. Of course, although there is some truth to this, some of this reasoning developed back when law school tuition was $1,000 per year, not $35,000, lawyers did not work 2,000 billable hours per year, and there was less of a gap between the elite in the profession and those in the trenches.
It also occurs to me that there are plenty of people earning much more money than lawyers, who also have a moral obligation to help those who cannot afford legal representation. Why should the burden fall disproportionately on lawyers? How about they also shell out some cash and pay lawyers to do it?
In summary, yes there are better people than me out there trying to make a difference. If you are like me, you may have been too wrapped up in trying to increase your income and get that bigger house to figure that out.
They say that hindsight is 20/20. I say better late than never. This happens to be Access to Justice Week in Ontario. Mayber we should actually pay attention to it.
This article was originally published by Law360 Canada, part of LexisNexis Canada Inc