The mindset that we are anything less than officers of the court and fiduciaries of our clients undermines the profession. If that means you have to do 50 hours of supervised pro-bono or assigned defense that is a consequence of your voluntary acceptance of the rights and responsibilities that come with the practice of law.

“[The] requirement is not in effect for applicants who take and pass the July 2012 bar exam. The Appellate Divisions will be developing rules for the new requirement. No further information on the initiative is available at this time. The Board will update this website as more information on the new initiative becomes available.”

A memo issued by the New York City Bar states, “It is unclear whether the requirement will take effect for those applying for admission in 2013, those taking the bar exam in 2013, those graduating in 2013, or some combination thereof.” According to the memo, details should be released by September 2012.

Not much help to those who fall into the gray area.

And while I agree with your points on altruism, I also believe there are self-serving factors that are not given enough credit. There is widespread sentiment that pro bono is entirely burdensome but this view is purely myopic. Aspiring attorneys and newly admitted attorneys seeking to market themselves as an employee and even attorneys seeking to market their practice can derive great benefit from pro bono. My experience has been so positive that I continue to devote a large portion of my practice to pro bono at 5 years out – and I’m not talking about the warm feeling I get inside from helping those who cannot help themselves. I’m talking about the warm feeling I get from a fat wallet.

Pro bono provides amazing benefits that can only be realized if we think a bit differently from the traditional social utility paradigm. Let’s be selfish for a moment. Think of the aspiring lawyer who wants to secure a job upon admission to the Bar. Getting involved in a pro bono program such as the Brooklyn Volunteer Lawyer Project (I use this as an example because it is one of the organizations I have direct involvement with), provides three crucial tools: 1) knowledge/training in a specific legal area; 2) experience within that area; and 3) perhaps most importantly, connections/mentors. For most, getting a job is not about a great resume. It is about making and working your connections. Some of the best connections I’ve forged have been through my pro bono work. All of these factors also apply to admitted attorneys seeking a job and to attorneys seeking to grow their practice.

We need to stop thinking of pro bono as a burden and start harnessing its power.

What an absolute disgrace. There is work to be had out there. One has no business working for free and while collecting from the public dole. Just because they could not find jobs AS LAWYERS does not justify their throwing up their hands and sponging off society. There are paralegal jobs. Secretary jobs. Burger-flipper jobs. Are they too good for real work?

Well, let’s call this what it really is . . . a tax on those who are least able to pay the tax. (sorry Susan, but I do think that you can reasonably compare this to a tax . . . and that taxes can sometimes be considered indentured servitude. Not normally, but under very specific circumstances taxes can create indentured servitude). Time is valuable and at even a fairly lowball rate of $100/hour, this requirement corresponds to a tax of $5,000, imposed on those least able to afford it (this is specifically the type of tax that would be able to be considered indentured servitude).

And it is being touted to ameliorate a problem with a frayed part of our social fabric – indigent legal services. And those are services that should be provided by those state funded agencies, agencies that should be fully funded by tax dollars levied on those that can more reasonably pay those taxes (read as law partners making 10+ times what these new bar admittees can be expected to make. How about we make the 10,000 lawyers in New York who make the most money chip in 5K and use it to hire those new low grads to serve indigent clients. The result would likely be better than a forced program of pro bono, but the social cost would be the same).

Plus, this would have the added benefit of increasing the number of jobs available to the new bar admittees, which is something desperately needed now.

And to your point of including this requirement as a requirement of graduation – well, that would be OK, too. How about we propose the New York courts mandate both?