Search
Close this search box.

Do As I Say . . .

Elena Kagan’s lack of judicial experience and thin record of practical legal experience of any sort is well-known. But her Judiciary Committee Questionnaire responses, released last week, reveal another type of experience she lacks: pro bono experience.

The legal community is generally highly supportive of offering its services free of charge — pro bono publico – a commitment that many have extended even to defending enemy combatants held in Guantanamo Bay. The American Bar Association calls for “every lawyer, regardless of professional prominence or professional workload, to find some time to participate in serving the disadvantaged.” The New York State Bar, of which Kagan is an inactive member, strongly encourages its members to provide at least 20 hours of pro bono legal services annually. The D.C. Bar, of which she is also an inactive member, asks its members to provide 50 hours of pro bono work per year. Indeed, Kagan herself has emphasized the importance of pro bono service. Upon receiving an award from Equal Justice Works, an organization that promotes public-interest legal work and on whose board then-Dean Kagan was sitting, she declared that “part of an obligation of an attorney is to give back and to serve people who need legal representation.”
 
So how is it that Kagan lists exactly zero hours of pro bono service in her questionnaire response? To be sure, she notes that she has sat on the board of at least one organization that may offer legal services to the poor, the American Indian Empowerment Fund, one that offers tutoring to low-income students, and two more that encourage or help fund young lawyers who want to pursue careers in public-interest law. But not only is this service somewhat tangential to actual pro bono practice, it is limited to her time as dean, and most of it was only in the past three years. Curiously, Harvard Law Students are required to fulfill 40 hours of pro bono legal work in order to graduate or be certified for bar admission. That requirement was obviously not in place when Kagan graduated.
 
Certainly a dean’s life affords little time for side pursuits like pro bono work. But it is hard to imagine that Kagan was more pressed for time than the average New York or D.C. lawyer. She managed to find time to do some paid work as a member of Goldman Sachs’ Research Advisory Council. There’s nothing wrong with taking such a job, but it does mean she had enough free time on hand that she could have taken a pro bono case or two and turned down the $10,000 stipend from Goldman.
 
Read the rest of the article here.

Get Connected

Receive email updates and breaking news alerts

STAND WITH US

Help us raise money and share our cause

LATEST VIDEOS

View the latest videos on breaking news and issues driving the judicial landscape