Pro Bono Quotes

When the late Pope John Paul II decided to place the woman so strangely known as “Mother” Teresa on the fast track for beatification, and thus to qualify her for eventual sainthood, the Vatican felt obliged to solicit my testimony and I thus spent several hours in a closed hearing room with a priest, a deacon, and a monsignor, no doubt making their day as I told off, as from a rosary, the frightful faults and crimes of the departed fanatic. In the course of this, I discovered that the pope during his tenure had surreptitiously abolished the famous office of “Devil’s Advocate,” in order to fast‐track still more of his many candidates for canonization. I can thus claim to be the only living person to have represented the Devil pro bono.

Fucking pro bono work. Going to get me killed one day.

I used to murder people for money, but these days it’s more of a survival technique.

There’s no way the person who made these lists actually has kids. They should be shot. And at this moment, I would defend the person who shoots them, pro bono. Just saying.

Is it really 'pro bono' if a lawyer takes your case in exchange for explosives? -Captain Hartung

The Latin term pro bono, as most attorneys will attest, roughly translated means for boneheads and applies to work done without charge.

In Greek mythology, Pallas Athena was celebrated as the goddess of reason and justice.1 To end the cycle of violence that began with Agamemnon’s sacrifice of his daughter, Iphigenia, Athena created a court of justice to try Orestes, thereby installing the rule of law in lieu of the reign of vengeance.2 Recall also the biblical Deborah (from the Book of Judges).3 She was at the same time prophet, judge, and military leader. This triple-headed authority was exercised by only two other Israelites, both men: Moses and Samuel. People came from far and wide to seek Deborah’s judgment. According to the rabbis, Deborah was independently wealthy; thus she could afford to work pro bono.4 Even if its members knew nothing of Athena and Deborah, the U.S. legal establishment resisted admitting women into its ranks far too long.

Once in a while, I like to polish my halo by taking on a case pro bono.

Your new role is that of interventionist. Liberator. Your target is faith. Your pro bono clients are individuals who’ve been infected by faith.

I have found that there are three key steps to identifying your own core personal projects. First, think back to what you loved to do when you were a child. How did you answer the question of what you wanted to be when you grew up? The specific answer you gave may have been off the mark, but the underlying impulse was not. If you wanted to be a fireman, what did a fireman mean to you? A good man who rescued people in distress? A daredevil? Or the simple pleasure of operating a truck? If you wanted to be a dancer, was it because you got to wear a costume, or because you craved applause, or was it the pure joy of twirling around at lightning speed? You may have known more about who you were then than you do now. Second, pay attention to the work you gravitate to. At my law firm I never once volunteered to take on an extra corporate legal assignment, but I did spend a lot of time doing pro bono work for a nonprofit women’s leadership organization. I also sat on several law firm committees dedicated to mentoring, training, and personal development for young lawyers in the firm. Now, as you can probably tell from this book, I am not the committee type. But the goals of those committees lit me up, so that’s what I did. Finally, pay attention to what you envy. Jealousy is an ugly emotion, but it tells the truth. You mostly envy those who have what you desire.

shook hands. She thanked him for his pro bono

Tom Milton heard of this, he came out of retirement and requested to represent her pro bono. Like everyone else, he had heard stories about the Marsh Girl,

I also was proud to represent John Thompson, a Louisiana man who had been wrongfully convicted of murder and sentenced to death. Two of my partners had represented Thompson pro bono for decades, and they had uncovered DNA evidence that proved his innocence. Tragically, the Louisiana district attorney’s office had deliberately suppressed the DNA evidence, and Thompson spent eighteen years of his life imprisoned for a crime he did not commit. He was released, and he subsequently sued the DA’s office for their wrongful conduct. A jury awarded him $14 million, and I helped represent Thompson on appeal.

wywołując tak marny i kiczowaty efekt. Tak się składa, że jestem jednym z niewielu ludzi, którym dane było uczestniczyć w weryfikowaniu „spraw” w procesie beatyfikacyjnym, jakim to określeniem posługuje się Kościół rzymskokatolicki. W czerwcu 2001 roku zostałem zaproszony przez Watykan do złożenia zeznań w trakcie przesłuchań związanych z beatyfikacją Agnes Bojahiu, ambitnej zakonnicy z Albanii, która stała się znana na całym świece pod nom de guerre „Matka Teresa”. Chociaż ówczesny papież rozwiązał słynną instytucję advocatus diaboli (adwokata diabła), by ułatwić procedurę potwierdzania i kanonizowania ogromnej liczby nowych „świętych”, kościół wciąż był zobowiązany do wysłuchania zeznań krytyków, zatem znalazłem się w roli reprezentanta diabła, w rzeczy samej, pro bono.

It’s not always so easy, it turns out, to identify your core personal projects. And it can be especially tough for introverts, who have spent so much of their lives conforming to extroverted norms that by the time they choose a career, or a calling, it feels perfectly normal to ignore their own preferences. They may be uncomfortable in law school or nursing school or in the marketing department, but no more so than they were back in middle school or summer camp. I, too, was once in this position. I enjoyed practicing corporate law, and for a while I convinced myself that I was an attorney at heart. I badly wanted to believe it, since I had already invested years in law school and on-the-job training, and much about Wall Street law was alluring. My colleagues were intellectual, kind, and considerate (mostly). I made a good living. I had an office on the forty-second floor of a skyscraper with views of the Statue of Liberty. I enjoyed the idea that I could flourish in such a high-powered environment. And I was pretty good at asking the “but” and “what if” questions that are central to the thought processes of most lawyers. It took me almost a decade to understand that the law was never my personal project, not even close. Today I can tell you unhesitatingly what is: my husband and sons; writing; promoting the values of this book. Once I realized this, I had to make a change. I look back on my years as a Wall Street lawyer as time spent in a foreign country. It was absorbing, it was exciting, and I got to meet a lot of interesting people whom I never would have known otherwise. But I was always an expatriate. Having spent so much time navigating my own career transition and counseling others through theirs, I have found that there are three key steps to identifying your own core personal projects. First, think back to what you loved to do when you were a child. How did you answer the question of what you wanted to be when you grew up? The specific answer you gave may have been off the mark, but the underlying impulse was not. If you wanted to be a fireman, what did a fireman mean to you? A good man who rescued people in distress? A daredevil? Or the simple pleasure of operating a truck? If you wanted to be a dancer, was it because you got to wear a costume, or because you craved applause, or was it the pure joy of twirling around at lightning speed? You may have known more about who you were then than you do now. Second, pay attention to the work you gravitate to. At my law firm I never once volunteered to take on an extra corporate legal assignment, but I did spend a lot of time doing pro bono work for a nonprofit women’s leadership organization. I also sat on several law firm committees dedicated to mentoring, training, and personal development for young lawyers in the firm. Now, as you can probably tell from this book, I am not the committee type. But the goals of those committees lit me up, so that’s what I did. Finally, pay attention to what you envy. Jealousy is an ugly emotion, but it tells the truth. You mostly envy those who have what you desire. I met my own envy after some of my former law school classmates got together and compared notes on alumni career tracks. They spoke with admiration and, yes, jealousy, of a classmate who argued regularly before the Supreme Court. At first I felt critical. More power to that classmate! I thought, congratulating myself on my magnanimity. Then I realized that my largesse came cheap, because I didn’t aspire to argue a case before the Supreme Court, or to any of the other accolades of lawyering. When I asked myself whom I did envy, the answer came back instantly. My college classmates who’d grown up to be writers or psychologists. Today I’m pursuing my own version of both those roles.

She’d since called her insurance company, arranged a substitute car, and attended court to make an election for one of her clients. She closed two real estate transactions (as her partner Vince so often said, you gotta make up that Legal Aid and pro bono stuff somewhere), and called her mother, who’d asked if she were still seeing that sartorially-challenged policeman.

There was no point denying it. I lived for the word and everybody knew it, and for Johnny my stories were always pro bono. A gift for the bonehead.

Pro bono has been abused as a cover and I detest those who do that because pro bono is such a noble thing to do. I have done a lot of pro bono work from the time I started my practice, never boasted about it, never got much publicity out of it. But every time when I see some people being interviewed regarding their pro bono work, I laugh because even the Government is coming into the picture. They had considered forcing all lawyers to do pro bono work. Pro bono is something that comes from your heart. You should have the desire to help. It should not be forced upon you. The authorities don’t realise this. The moment you force pro bono on lawyers, you take away the meaning of pro bono. Those who are genuinely concerned and do pro bono also will be classified as people who have to do it because they have been told to do so.

I have money. Lots of it. Which means if I’m intrigued I can indulge in the occasional pro bono case.” “So you’ll take me on?” The flutter of her heart now had more than one reason to stutter fast. “Oh, never fear, little rabbit. I fully intend to take you.” How did he make that sound both ominous and promising at the same time?

Be on the lookout for a 1949 black Ford.  Nebraska license number 2-15628.  Radiator grille missing.  No hubcaps.  Believed to be driven by Charles Starkweather, a white male, nineteen years old, 5 feet 5 inches tall, 140 pounds, dark red hair, green eyes.  Believed to be wearing blue jeans and black leather jacket.  Wanted by Lincoln police for questioning in homicide.  Officers were warned to approach with caution.  Starkweather was believed to be armed and presumed dangerous.

Pro bono, Latin for ‘empty bank account.

Allow me to deal with this Veitch pro bono, sir, which is to say at no cost to yourself whatsoever. I shall smite him with the full fury and force and majesty of the law not purely to insinuate myself into your affections, although that will surely be a corollary effect, but because it is the right thing to do, sir. I am, after all, an officer of the court, and it behoves me when confronted with incompetence and effrontery and the sheer fucking cheek of one such as this Veitch to ruin him utterly for the sake of the very law, sir. The sake of the very law.

Suddenly Robin felt relief: Her mother had a life outside her home, outside of sitting there at that kitchen table, stewing in her own flesh, in the layers of hate and frustration and anger and heartbreak that she had been building up for so long. If she came here regularly, and she was helping people, then maybe she could be saved after all. Edie had always lived to help people, volunteering with the elderly, the synagogue, feeding the homeless every Christmas without fail. All those female political candidates she canvassed for. All those family members who needed pro bono work, and she did it without thinking, staying up late after Robin and her brother had gone to bed. God, where was that passionate, connected, committed woman? Robin missed her so. Was she right here?

An important example is the debate around Black Lives Matter, Blue Lives Matter, and All Lives Matter. Can you believe that black lives matter and also care deeply about the well-being of police officers? Of course. Can you care about the well-being of police officers and at the same time be concerned about abuses of power and systemic racism in law enforcement and the criminal justice system? Yes. I have relatives who are police officers—I can’t tell you how deeply I care about their safety and well-being. I do almost all of my pro bono work with the military and public servants like the police—I care. And when we care, we should all want just systems that reflect the honor and dignity of the people who serve in those systems. But then, if it’s the case that we can care about citizens and the police, shouldn’t the rallying cry just be All Lives Matter? No. Because the humanity wasn’t stripped from all lives the way it was stripped from the lives of black citizens. In order for slavery to work, in order for us to buy, sell, beat, and trade people like animals, Americans had to completely dehumanize slaves. And whether we directly participated in that or were simply a member of a culture that at one time normalized that behavior, it shaped us. We can’t undo that level of dehumanizing in one or two generations. I believe Black Lives Matter is a movement to rehumanize black citizens in the hearts of those of us who have consciously or unconsciously bought into the insidious, rampant, and ongoing devaluation of black lives. All lives matter, but not all lives need to be pulled back into moral inclusion. Not all people were subjected to the psychological process of demonizing and being made less than human so we could justify the inhumane practice of slavery. Is there tension and vulnerability in supporting both the police and the activists? Hell, yes. It’s the wilderness. But most of the criticism comes from people who are intent on forcing these false either/or dichotomies and shaming us for not hating the right people. It’s definitely messier taking a nuanced stance, but it’s also critically important to true belonging.

served as his lawyer pro bono.

You know the irony about speaking fees? When I do something for full fee, people are respectful and professional. When I do something pro bono because I care about the cause, people are respectful and professional. When I do something because I feel pushed, pressured, guilt-tripped, or shamed into it, I expect people to be appreciative in addition to being respectful and professional. Ninety percent of the time they are none of the above. How can we expect people to put value on our work when we don’t value ourselves enough to set and hold uncomfortable boundaries?

We had accepted this job pro bono, because snatching a service animal from a child in a wheelchair was a heinous act and someone had to make it right.

The man who chooses to act pro bono suo, thereby turning a rule that was right into a wrong. that man is to be deemed a tirant, the wise king said, who, using the progress, wellbeing, and prosperitie of those he governs as a praetext, replaces the cultus of his people by that of his owne person, becoming thereby a fereful and fallacious pelican. His diabolical cunning turns those very men he doth claim to liberate into slaves.

There will of course be failures, and returns will never match pure technology VC funds. But that should be fine with those involved. The ecosystem will likely be staffed by older VC executives who are looking to make a difference, or possibly by younger VC types who are taking a “sabbatical” or doing “pro bono” work.

Pro bono’s for lawyers,” he said. “This is a favor.” “For who?” He sighed. “Let’s just get out of here.

Abigor, pecca pro nobis… Amon, miserere nobis… Samael, libera nos a bono… Belial eleison… Focalor, in corruptionem meam intende… Haborym, damnamus dominum… Zaebos, anum meum apries… Leonard, asperge me spermate et inquinabor

These victories arose from the determined efforts of a group of lawyers who risked public odium by defending fugitive slaves in court and challenging the long-standing system of black indentured servitude. John M. Palmer, Gustave Koerner, and Orville H. Browning, all future Republican politicians, argued that blacks held to long-term indentures were free, and fought their cases in court without charge. In the 1850s, Lincoln’s law partner William Herndon represented fugitive slaves pro bono.

A lawyer should be mindful of deficiencies in the administration of justice and of the fact that the poor, and sometimes persons who are not poor, cannot afford adequate legal assistance.

An excellent comprehensive mineral and vitamin bone-building supplement, providing more than two dozen nutrients important for bone growth, is a product called Pro-Bono, made by Ortho Molecular Products. Another product I can recommend is the plant-based supplement called Bone Renewal made by Pure Synergy.

To our comrades who have fallen, one cup before we go; They poured their life-blood freely out pro bono publico. No marble points the stranger to where they rest below; They lie neglected—far away from Benny Haven’s, O!

Kindness sown among the meek is harvested in crisis, in fairy tales and sometimes in actuality. I know a man who lost a fortune suddenly and was penniless with a legal battle to fight and children to support. He found that he had another kind of wealth in the ties of affection and respect he had built up, wealth he would otherwise have never seen. Lawyers took on his case pro bono, the grocery store extended credit, the schools gave scholarships, and he got by on the wealth that was invisible before the money dried up. In

You need to have a good Bonds man. He needs to be able to go up to a million dollars in a flash. I remember one time I was getting out on bond. The judge sets the bond but the payment or whatever is set up by this woman who’s like a clerk in some other part of the courthouse. And I’m standing there unrepentant and I got a certain fuck you attitude so I was kinda messing with her while she was processing me, making fun of the whole thing. She looked at me real serious and says “I hate people like you.” Well right then a couple police officers walk by and some of them ask me if I want anything from the sandwich shop, friendly as can be. I could see she knew they worked for me. But what did I care. I got out of there. They had found four kilos in one of my cars and I was only in custody for a couple hours.

constitutional revision commission. Simultaneously, Smith was becoming more involved with his profession through the American Bar Association. He met and became close to Lewis Powell of Virginia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg of New York, future justices on the U.S. Supreme Court. He says, “Powell appointed me to a committee called Availability of Legal Services. We made sure people who needed legal representation and didn’t know where to turn or couldn’t afford a lawyer, that those people could get a lawyer.” It was a radical idea at the time, but it changed the face of American law, leading to more pro bono work within established firms, legal ombudsmen, and the Legal

He sometimes represented poor people in criminal cases on a pro bono basis or was paid with just a barrel of ham.

once convicted, a prisoner’s opportunity to prove his or her innocence is extremely remote and requires an army of pro bono lawyers and tenacious family members willing to work for years at great expense without any guarantee of restoring justice.

Promotions and appointments are controlled by a rite of passage in the civil service called empanelment, which decides whether civil servants, predominantly officers of the IAS, can serve in Government of India as joint secretaries, additional secretaries and secretaries. Though officially the selection is done by a committee chaired by the cabinet secretary and comprising the home secretary, secretary personnel, and principal secretary to prime minister, and then approved by the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet, no one really knows how it is actually done. The rules are changed whenever required to assist a political favourite as files apparently fly between South Block and 10 Janpath. Pencil entries are made deleting and adding candidates as per the dictates of the powerful, and the minutes of the original selection committee are signed only after agreements between the political masters, business houses and captive or powerful bureaucrats are reached. These proceedings are then smoothly approved by the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet comprising the home minister and prime minister. The same controlling clique proceeds to appoint the convenient bureaucrat to high profile, lucrative ministries such as defence, home, finance, civil aviation, telecommunication, petroleum, urban development, steel etc. while officers without clout are consigned to residual ministries, normally the social sector ones. Potential for commissions and kickbacks determine which ministries must have captive bureaucrats, and these are the ministries that the DMK has traditionally claimed. The UPA added another dimension that cemented the politician-bureaucrat nexus by decreeing informally and formally that ministers have the right of choice of their secretaries. This meant that the empanelled secretary had to do the rounds of ministries where vacancies were imminent, and solicit his case for selection, unless some higher politician or business house had already spoken for him. And it would be naive to think that such an appointment would be pro bono publico. An honest bureaucrat has nowhere to turn for redressal as the relevant fora were also clearly controlled by the same mafia. With a sense of resignation all they could do is attempt a joke, ‘the Nair you are, the higher you are’!

After sweating it out on death row for a decade, Ray Harris managed to get his sentence reduced to life imprisonment due to ineffective assistance of counsel. That same year, Vaughn’s boss Mick agreed to represent Harris pro bono and persuaded the Superior Court that Harris’s first attorney was so incompetent that his client deserved a new trial.

I wish I could say I rushed back and confronted George to get his side of the story. I wish I could say I stood up to Vic and insisted that George be given a translator and allowed to defend himself or announced that I'd find a lawyer who'd handle the case pro bono. At the very least I should have testified as to the kid's honesty. The mystery to me is that there's not much worth stealing in the dry-storage room, at least not in any fenceable quantity: "Is Gyorgi here, and am having 200- maybe 250-catsup packets. What do you say?" My guess is that he had taken- if he had taken anything at all-some Saltines or a can of cherry pie mix and that the motive for taking it was hunger. So why didn't I intervene? Certainly not because I was held back by the kind of moral paralysis that can mask as journalistic objectivity. On the contrary, something new-something loathsome and servile-had infected me, along with the kitchen odors that I could still sniff on my bra when I finally undressed at night. In real life I am moderately brave, but plenty of brave people shed their courage in POW camps, and maybe something similar goes on in the infinitely more congenial milieu of the low-wage American workplace. Maybe, in a month or two more at Jerry's, I might have regained my crusading spirit. Then again, in a month or two I might have turned into a different person altogether - say, the kind of person who would have turned George in.

Having spent so much time navigating my own career transition and counseling others through theirs, I have found that there are three key steps to identifying your own core personal projects. First, think back to what you loved to do when you were a child. How did you answer the question of what you wanted to be when you grew up? The specific answer you gave may have been off the mark, but the underlying impulse was not. If you wanted to be a fireman, what did a fireman mean to you? A good man who rescued people in distress? A daredevil? Or the simple pleasure of operating a truck? If you wanted to be a dancer, was it because you got to wear a costume, or because you craved applause, or was it the pure joy of twirling around at lightning speed? You may have known more about who you were then than you do now. Second, pay attention to the work you gravitate to. At my law firm I never once volunteered to take on an extra corporate legal assignment, but I did spend a lot of time doing pro bono work for a nonprofit women’s leadership organization. I also sat on several law firm committees dedicated to mentoring, training, and personal development for young lawyers in the firm. Now, as you can probably tell from this book, I am not the committee type. But the goals of those committees lit me up, so that’s what I did. Finally, pay attention to what you envy. Jealousy is an ugly emotion, but it tells the truth. You mostly envy those who have what you desire. I met my own envy after some of my former law school classmates got together and compared notes on alumni career tracks. They spoke with admiration and, yes, jealousy, of a classmate who argued regularly before the Supreme Court. At first I felt critical. More power to that classmate! I thought, congratulating myself on my magnanimity. Then I realized that my largesse came cheap, because I didn’t aspire to argue a case before the Supreme Court, or to any of the other accolades of lawyering. When I asked myself whom I did envy, the answer came back instantly. My college classmates who’d grown up to be writers or psychologists. Today I’m pursuing my own version of both those roles.

Dad, she is working pro bono, she says the government has taken control of the judiciary by putting their own people in, that’s the nub of the problem, once you get your own people in you can do whatever you like.