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Thursday, December 16, 2010

Courts "Mississippi considers pro bono mandate for lawyers"

David Harrison, Stateline staff writer, has this long story that begins:

For every client helped by a Mississippi legal aid office, another is turned away for lack of resources. And for every client who walks in the door of one of these offices, many more are entitled to help but don’t seek it. Faced with these grim statistics, Mississippi’s Supreme Court is considering a radical solution: requiring attorneys in private firms to perform volunteer work or pay a fee.

Part of the state Supreme Court’s formal mission is to make sure residents have proper access to the justice system. But funding for indigent legal services is tight and the recession has brought a flood of pleas for legal help. If adopted, the proposal would make Mississippi the first state to mandate that lawyers perform what until now has been volunteer work. A committee of the court is studying the idea, after which it could be presented to the full court. There is no timetable guiding the committee’s work.

The rule change would apply mostly in civil cases. In criminal cases, defendants have a constitutional right to an attorney, and courts in Mississippi and other states routinely appoint lawyers and offer them a modest compensation to represent indigent criminal defendants.

Under the current proposal, about 6,000 of the state’s roughly 8,500 lawyers would have to do 20 hours of pro bono legal work a year or pay a $500 fee. Lawyers who work in specialized parts of the law or lawyers who work for the court system, the government or legal aid offices would be exempt from the requirement. A recent public comment period on the idea drew over 100 responses, many of them opposed. But Justice Jess Dickinson of the Mississippi Supreme Court says there are few alternatives. “This is not just some power grab by the court to force lawyers to do something,” he says. “We’re desperately struggling to find some way to address this huge problem.”

Posted by Marcia Oddi on December 16, 2010 03:30 PM
Posted to Courts in general