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'Equal justice' requires a little charity

4/4/2006 5:16:40 AM
Charlie Mitchell, Daily Journal

The number of hours Mississippi's 7,000 lawyers are expected to spend providing free legal services to the poor has been cut in half.

But there's a kicker - and it's a big one.

Hours spent pro bono publico must now be reported to the licensing entity for attorneys - and failure to comply with the new Rule 6.1 of the Mississippi Rules of Professional Conduct can lead to disbarment.

Associate Supreme Court Justice Jess H. Dickinson likes the change and isn't bothered the least that 40 hours per year has been dropped to 20.

After all, he said, the former 40-hour "rule" was so advisory in nature most attorneys didn't even know it existed.

"I wouldn't even care if it were less than 20," Dickinson said, "because now at least once per year every lawyer who practices in Mississippi must at least think about it" (when filling out a compliance form).

Hours spent on charity boards don't count, nor can hours be claimed for clients who just don't pay their bills. Pro bono means free - intentionally free.

Dickinson practiced for more than 21 years, mostly in Gulfport, before the election that made him one of the state's top nine judges in January 2004. Speaking at a Mississippi College School of Law event, he confessed he wasn't exactly a champ at giving away his time during those years. Too, he said he is sympathetic to the fact that lawyers have overhead to pay, families to support and he noted that few, if any, other careers even suggest practitioners ought to toil for free.

The practice of law is different, he said, and here's why: For civil and criminal systems to work for anyone, they have to work for everyone.

Wealth can't be a factor.

The Rev. Martin Luther King put it this way: Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

And from the vantage point of the Supreme Court bench, Dickinson said, the disparity in access to legal services in Mississippi is abysmal.

An armed robbery defendant facing 20 years might get seven minutes with a court-appointed attorney under a "meet 'em, greet 'em, plead em" arrangement. Another defendant might spend three years in pretrial detention with no attorney appointed, no case investigation, no nothing.

"You might say, Well, it's OK because they're probably guilty,' but it's not OK," Dickinson said. "It's just not OK."

The Legislature has declined time and again to fund a statewide legal defender program, but Dickinson said that it's in the civil sector - adoptions, divorces, child custody, immigration, landlord-tenant, property law, navigating bureaucratic mazes - that needs are equally pressing. The overall ratio is one lawyer for every 380 people in America. A subset is that there are 4,300 people who need legal help for every attorney who can or will provide services at no cost.

"This was never meant to be," Dickinson said, recalling a time when students left law schools more idealistic and less materialistic.

"The heroes in our profession now are the big-case winners," Dickinson said, "where formerly the heroes were the champions of justice."

While apparently not shy about trying to shame lawyers into more public service, Dickinson said there's another draw: It's personally rewarding work. It feels as good or better to help a person through a legal crisis as it does to take delivery on a new Lexus.

It's not as if the poor have absolutely no access to attorneys.

Mississippi provides not a penny for legal aid, but does staff (understaff would be more accurate) consumer protection services through the attorney general's Office. The state bar has a referral service.

Many communities, local bar associations and the state's two law schools have programs to provide free guidance. Federally funded legal aid clinics still exist, although their funding is low and there are limits on the kinds of cases their attorneys can take.

As part of the new pro bono rule, more money might be available to such programs. The new 20-hour "requirement" has some outs. There's no checking up, for one thing - so if a lawyer wants to prevaricate (a lawyer would never lie), there's not much chance of getting caught. But for those with pangs of conscience - and no free time - an option is to add $200 per year to their licensing fee. That money, in turn, will go to those providing legal services to people who need them, but who can't pay.

Courts need to be balanced in individual cases and they need to be balanced overall. There's a ways to go. "Eighty percent of the need among the poor for legal services is going unmet."

Charlie Mitchell is executive editor of The Vicksburg Post. Write to him at P.O. Box 821668, Vicksburg, MS 39182, or e-mail post@vicksburg.com