The first two attorneys her family consulted wanted 1/3 of an already made policy limits offer and told them that they would have to pay back 2/3 of the medical bills. (They were referring to the common fund doctrine under state law and very likely had no idea on how to allocate under federal law). That would have left her with next to nothing. When they came to me, I knew I owed pro bono work to the commnity and this case felt like the perfect one for me. I have two young daughters myself. Plus, my wife is a teacher, and doing these kinds of things has always made my wife proud of me, which we all know is a good thing if you want to keep a good marriage healthy and strong.

I learned all about federal reimbursement statutes, allocation, etc., when I was an insurance company defense attorney and was assigned a serious of opinion letters on a major injury case soon after Alhorn was decided. This girl was hurt badly and lost nearly two years of her childhood due to hospitalization and medical treatment. I could not in good conscience ask for one-third and refuse to do anything for her if not. I had the skills to help her, and decided this was the time for pro bono work.

I decided to share my example because it seems every other example has someone doing civil rights or constitutional issues. There are other ways you can help people who need pro bono help, i.e. helping them to keep money, as in the case of this little girl. Interestingly, they did not come to me asking I do it pro bono. They came to me because someone told them I have done this type of work before for several attorneys that hired me for this specific purpose. They were shocked when I reviewed their case and told them I would take it pro bono.

24AheadDotCom: If any lawyers want some pro bono work that doesn’t involve legal matters, consider helping raise the level of debate in the U.S. above that of people ranting at meetings by “cross-examining” pols at their events…

Unfortunately, as I read the information on your link, I don’t think it will do much to “raise the level of debate”, insofar as it appears to focus on political mendacity. From what I learned from the Jesuits in dusty days long ago, the argument that your opponent is lying or malicious is not in fact a strong argument, but an extremely weak argument.

For example, I support concealed carry for law abiding citizens. However, I do not ascribe evil or dishonesty to politicians who want to limit concealed carry. We probably share a goal – protecting individual citizens from becoming victims of violent crime – but we differ as to methodology.

In addition, for the last four years, I have been working many hours each week PB on the renovation of a local community from strip-mall, parking-lot dominated suburb to a walkable, sustainable, transit-oriented New Urban community. http://www.whiteflint.org. (And, no, I have no financial interest; just think it’s the right thing to do.)

–Drafting parts of the brief in a veterans’ benfits case now pending before the D.C. Circuit.

–Representing a Cameroonian asylum applicant who fled his home country after being imprisoned, tortured, and raped by prison guards for being in the wrong political party.

–Helping with the representation of a high school student expelled after getting in a fight. The school board’s expulsion ruling was procedurally improper: Client had a hearing on certain charges, but the expulsion ruling found the client “guilty” of those charges plus others that were never mentioned at the hearing. On appeal, the Department of Education remanded for a new hearing to consider the extra charges. Rather than hold a hearing, the school board simply excised the offending paragraphs and said it had never actually considered those charges in the first place when deciding to expel the client.

I’m involved pro bono in a number of speech-related prosecutions of animal rights activists, including as amici in United States v. Fullmer, and as counsel in United States v. Buddenberg and California v. Olliff (no good link, but essentially a ten count indictment for home demonstrations which included, among many chants, “what goes around comes around; burn the fucker to the ground,” which the state claims constitutes a true threat).