The Evolution of Pro Bono Reporting: Should It Be Mandatory?

|The Evolution of Pro Bono Reporting |

|Should It Be Mandatory? |

|Dennis E. Robinson |

Dennis Robinson

Legal Profession Seminar

Professor Lewis Noonberg

University of Maryland, Baltimore School of Law

Summer 2008

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Executive Summary……………………………………………………………………..3

Rule 6.1 Voluntary Pro Bono Publico Service …............................................................5

Development of Pro Bono Commentary in Model Rules ………………......…….…….6

Pros and Cons: Should Pro Bono Service Be Mandatory?……………………………………………………………………….…….12

Making Pro Bono a Requirement……………..……………….......................................17

Maryland’s Rule 6.1: Revision and Analysis…...............................................................19

Works Cited……………..…...........................................................................................22

Executive Summary

Model Rule 6.1 of the American Bar Association’s (ABA) Model Rules of Professional Conduct suggests a professional responsibility to provide free-to-low cost legal services to those unable to pay. From the ABA’s first publication in the Canons of Ethics in 1908 to the current Model Rules, a lawyer’s duty to provide pro bono services to the indigent has evolved from a caustic warning to avoid profit-motivated legal work, to a casual reminder suggesting the lawyer’s individual pro bono responsibility, then finally to its modern form: a suggested mandate which not only recommends that the legal community require pro bono service, but also works to establish systems which tracks the individual lawyer’s service.

Commentary suggesting a duty to provide these services was largely absent from the ABA publications approaching the 21st century. However, as the legal profession matured, attorneys recognized that the success of our system of justice was largely dependent upon affording access to it by...