October 26, 2019

Pro bono legal service integral to Worcester lawyers’ work

BY Susan SpencerWorcester Telegram & Gazette

WORCESTER – Lawyers are portrayed in popular culture as everything from defenders of justice to unscrupulous schemers, the subject of countless jokes and quotes.

Recent recognition of Worcester-area lawyers spotlights an often-overlooked contribution these professionals make: taking time away from their billable hours for clients who may pay them handsomely, to donate pro bono, or uncompensated, legal services to persons of limited means or to nonprofit charitable organizations.

The American Bar Association designated last week as National Pro Bono Week, to call attention to the need for pro bono services and celebrate lawyers who donate their time to those who cannot afford a lawyer.

It’s an investment in the community that many lawyers said was second nature to being a good lawyer.

Bowditch & Dewey LLP was nationally recognized by the ABA at a summit outside Washington, D.C. last month, with its ABA Outstanding Medical-Legal Partnership Pro Bono Advocacy Award.

The award celebrates Bowditch’s years of pro bono commitment to “meeting the health-harming needs of low-income families in Central Massachusetts, including through the Community Legal Aid Medical-Legal Partnership with UMass Memorial Medical Center,” according to the association.

Also, the state Supreme Judicial Court’s Standing Committee on Pro Bono Legal Services honored three local lawyers on Thursday with awards. They were Rhonda L. Bachrach, for her exemplary record as a volunteer attorney for programs administered by Community Legal Aid, the Worcester County Bar Association and CLA’s medical-legal partnership with UMass Memorial Health Care; and Douglas L. Fox and Lawrence E. Cohen, for extraordinary dedication to providing pro bono legal services for more than 30 years to the residents of Jeremiah’s Inn, a residential recovery program in Worcester, according to a news release from the SJC.

The SJC set in its rules of professional conduct an expectation that a lawyer should provide annually at least 25 hours of pro bono legal services for the benefit of persons of limited means, or contribute from $250 to 1% of the lawyer’s annual taxable professional income to support legal services to persons of limited means. Many in Worcester go well above and beyond that standard.

AiVi Nguyen, a partner at Bowditch & Dewey who accepted the ABA’s national award on behalf of her colleagues, grew up in Worcester in a low-income family.

“I am where I am because there were people who helped,” she said, citing the guidance provided to her parents on accessing disability and welfare benefits.

Now she helps others in need through the medical-legal partnership by advocating with a landlord for a clean, mold-free apartment for a patient with asthma, for example, or helping a parent of a child with special needs get the services they require.

“It will significantly change this person’s life,” she said.

The cases come to the law firm through CLA, which gets alerted to them by UMass Memorial Medical Center clinics and hospital.

Kate Gannon, a staff attorney for the CLA medical-legal partnership, said Bowditch & Dewey was particularly dedicated to “providing holistic upstream advocacy,” in other words addressing issues before they became big legal problems for clients, and to recruiting other attorneys and participating in training on the different challenges CLA clients face.

Terrence J. Briggs, a Bowditch & Dewey partner who spends most of his time negotiating business contracts and employee compensation, helped a veteran with post-traumatic stress disorder and his mother, who has developmental challenges, ward off eviction by the Worcester Housing Authority over the cluttered condition of their otherwise clean apartment.

“If you put them out on the street, they were likely to be homeless,” Briggs said.

“There was actually more social work in these” cases than there would be normally in adversarial situations, he said.

Nguyen said that health care providers usually “haven’t been trained to focus on things that are not necessarily examinable in the room.” Lawyers can use their negotiating skills addressing some of the social determinants of health, such as housing and education.

“It’s me making phone calls,” she said. “Sometimes you need the muscle and I think that’s the power of the Bowditch brand.”

Nguyen estimated she spends 400 hours a year, a fifth of her time, on pro bono work.

Andrew Bartholomew, an associate at Bowditch & Dewey, said he’s been helping a woman work with the Worcester Public Schools to transfer her child to a school better equipped to handle his emotional needs.

A business law litigator, he said, “It’s completely different from what I do in my regular line of work.”

Bartholomew said he felt no pressure to focus more on his billable work.

“To be honest, I hope to do more going forward,” he said. “It’s something you should do: give back to your community.”

“Public service has been in the DNA of Bowditch & Dewey since the beginning,” said James D. Hanrahan, a real estate lawyer and former managing partner, now in the Framingham office, who formalized engaging all the lawyers in the firm in outside service.

“It’s expected that you’ll do it and you’ll be supported,” he said. “We firmly believe it’s being an integral part of the community.”

Describing the range of pro bono work the firm’s lawyers participate in, from the medical-legal partnership to helping nonprofits through board service, to estate planning and advocacy, Hanrahan said, “It’s stuff that hits people in everyday life and they don’t know where to turn.”

Other area law firms are also committed to pro bono service.

James C. Donnelly Jr., of counsel at Mirick O’Connell, in Worcester and Westboro, said the firm encourages everyone from young associates to seasoned lawyers and support staff to “find meaningful involvement in the community.”

“It’s just a very central part of our culture,” he said. “We don’t do it to get a gold star on our forehead.”

He said Mirick O’Connell’s lawyers provide traditional pro bono legal representation to people who can’t afford a lawyer, as well as contribute their time to serving on the boards of the region’s nonprofit organizations.

Bringing their legal skills to an outside organization benefits the community, he said, while the experience improves a lawyer’s skills.

“The message that we consciously give is to become a really good lawyer, you have to be a lot more than just a lawyer,” Donnelly said.

“We can’t just let people retreat into their electronic caves. If you want to be a successful lawyer, engage with the community.”

Donnelly guided John Woodman Higgins Armory Museum Inc. trustees through the four-year process of dissolving and transferring its collection to the Worcester Art Museum, something he described as “the most challenging thing I’ve ever done.”

He said it was worth it.

“The Worcester Art Museum today is a very different place than before the Higgins transaction and it is infinitely better off. It enriches the whole experience,” he said. “That said, there is more to come.”

Donnelly said Mirick O’Connell doesn’t have a rigid standard for volunteer service, nor would he favor one because that could encourage empty gestures.

Instead, he said in an email, pro bono contributions should be valued and celebrated “so that people are genuinely motivated to embrace the idea of personally committing to the community causes where their contributions will have the greatest effect.”

“We don’t go to the point of counting every hour that our lawyers are engaged,” said Frederick M. Misilo Jr., director at Fletcher Tilton PC in Worcester. “This is really just giving back to the community.”

He said community investment, through participation in a wide range of nonprofit organizations, government and advocacy, “is part of the atmosphere and its culture. Our clients come from this community and we invest in it.”

While many private-sector professionals volunteer with community organizations, Misilo said, “Many people who go to law school are naturally inclined to want to participate in something bigger than themselves.”

Worcester, in particular, brings out the best in community involvement, he said. “There’s a reason they call it the Heart of the Commonwealth.”

Misilo couldn’t quantify the value of pro bono work provided by Fletcher Tilton lawyers, but referring to a MasterCard ad campaign, described it as priceless.

“Lawyers are making a difference in their communities,” he said.

Gannon, from Community Legal Aid, agreed that in Central and Western Massachusetts, volunteerism is part of the culture.

She said when low-income clients turn to CLA for help, “We do the best we can with what we have,” but “if we can’t place them with an attorney, I have to turn them away.”

CLA worked with 230 private attorneys last year, who provided 2,923 volunteer hours on 918 cases, according to Gannon. The in-kind contribution of their work was valued at more than $614,000.

“Worcester is a city with a small-town feel,” Gannon said. “A lot of attorneys have commitments to their neighbors.”