Clinical Professors' Professional Responsibility: Preparing Law Students to Embrace Pro Bono
![handle is hein.journals/geojpovlp18 and id is 315 raw text is: Georgetown Journal on Poverty Law & Policy
Volume XVIII, Number 3, Symposium Issue 2011
ARTICLES
Clinical Professors' Professional Responsibility:
Preparing Law Students to Embrace Pro Bono
Douglas L. Colbert*
. I. INTRODUCTION
The newly admitted twenty-first century lawyer faces a choice. As a member
of a profession that claims a special responsibility for the quality of justice,'
will she provide pro bono service to the people who cannot afford legal
representation?2 Or will she join colleagues who focus on the retained, paying
client, and spend little or no time serving the poor and sometimes persons who
are not poor?3 While the ethical framework for this decision-making process has
been in place for several decades,' the current lawyer's code of ethics suggests
that the profession has fallen short in meeting its ethical duties. But there is good
news: clinical programs can have a profound impact and even lead to reform of
systemic problems.
* Professor of Law, University of Maryland School of Law. A.B. 1968, SUNY at Buffalo, J.D. 1972,
Rutgers (Newark) Law School. I offer my sincere appreciation and gratitude to Cindy Feathers for
supporting this project and offering many excellent suggestions and ideas throughout the writing of this
Article. I am particularly thankful for the excellent research and contribution by Maryland law students
Tiffany Joly, Margot Kniffin, and Nathan Home. @ 2011, Douglas L. Colbert.
1. MODEL RuLEs OF PROF'L CoNDucr, pmbl. 1 (2002) [hereinafter Preamble] (reading in part: A
lawyer, as a member of the legal profession, is a representative of clients, an officer of the legal system
and a public citizen having special responsibility for the quality of justice).
2. MODEL RuLEs OF PROF'L CONDUcT R. 6.1(a) (2002) (declaring that, every lawyer has a
professional responsibility to provide legal services to those unable to pay).
3. Preamble, supra note 1, 1 6 (informing every lawyer that his or her obligations include the
following: As a public citizen, a lawyer should seek improvement of the law, access to the legal system,
the administration of justice and the quality of service rendered by the legal profession ... 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. Therefore, all lawyers
should devote professional time and resources and use civic influence to ensure equal access -to our
system of justice for all those who because of economic- or social barriers cannot afford or secure
adequate legal counsel . . . .) (emphasis added).
4. See infra Part II (describing that in 1908, the American Bar Association created the first Canons of
Ethics, which most state bar associations accepted when defining a lawyer's ethical duties. Further
revisions occurred in 1969, when the ABA voted in favor of the Model Code of Professional
Responsibility and again in 1983 and 2002, when the ABA approved the current Model Rules of
Professional Conduct).
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Clinical Professors' Professional Responsibility: Preparing Law Students to Embrace Pro Bono
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