Private Lawyers and the Public Interest: The Evolving Role of Pro Bono in the Legal Profession - The legal profession's commitment to the expansion of pro bono has achieved significant gains in recent years. This workshop, organized by Robert Granfield, Chair of Sociology at University at Buffalo, will explore the evolving role of pro bono, the relationship between pro bono ideals and pro bono in practice, and the opportunities and limitations of pro bono in expanding access to justice. The participants will explore theoretical, empirical, and practical questions regarding the role of pro bono and public service in the legal profession.
This Baldy Center workshop is cosponsored by the Volunteer Lawyers Project, Eighth Judicial District Pro Bono Committee, University at Buffalo Department of Sociology, and University at Buffalo Law School.
Registration
This conference is free and open to the public; however, registration is required due to limited space on Friday. Please email your name, contact information, and affiliation to Ellen Kausner, Events Coordinator, at ekausner@buffalo.edu. Registration includes breaks, coffee, and Friday's lunch. For CLE registration, see details below. Please respond by Monday, April 21, 2008.
Program
Thursday, April 24th, Main-Seneca Building, 237 Main Street, Buffalo |
||
5:00 pm |
Reception |
|
6:00 pm |
Welcome Keynote address: Where is the Public in Lawyers' Public Service? Pro Bono and the Bottom Line Introduced by Hon. Rose H. Sconiers, NYS Supreme Court Justice |
|
|
Friday, April 25th, 106 O'Brian Hall, North Campus |
||
8:00 am |
Coffee and Pastries |
|
8:45 am |
Welcome: Anthony Szczgiel, UB Law |
|
9:00 am |
Panel One: Pro Bono and the Context of Practice The Institutionalization of Pro Bono in Large Law Firms Pro Bono and Low Bono in the Solo and Small Law Firm Context Issues Entrepreneurs and the Shaping of Pro Bono Law Divergence and Professional Obligation: The Varied Meanings of Pro Bono in Practice |
|
10:15 am |
Break |
|
10:30 am |
Panel Two: Pro Bono and Law Schools |
|
|
The History of the Law School Pro Bono Movement Learning to Serve: Lawyers' Reflections on Mandatory Pro Bono in Law School Priming for Pro Bono Publico: The Impact of Law School on Pro Bono Participation in Practice |
||
11:45 am |
Responders: Susan Feathers, Levin Center for Public Services and Public Interest Law, Stanford University; and John Henry Schlegel, UB Law |
|
12:15 pm |
Lunch with Keynote |
|
1:00 pm |
Keynote Address A Second Season of Service by Karen Mathis, immediate past president, American Bar Association |
|
2:00 pm |
Panel Three: Concurrent Sessions A. Community Roundtable B. Pro Bono in the Interests of Social Change The Role of Volunteer Lawyers in Challenging the Conditions of a Local Housing Crisis in Buffalo, NY Pro Bono Goes Global: How Multinational Law Firms Can Launch Pro Bono Campaigns Against Radical Poverty |
|
3:15 pm |
Break |
|
3:30 pm |
Panel Four: Pro Bono in the Life of the Legal Profession |
|
|
Pro Bono Activity and Markets for Lawyers' Services Pro Bono as a Strategy to Build Legal Capital Private Practice in the Public Interest: The Limits of Pro Bono |
||
4:45 - 5:00 pm |
Responder: Rick Abel, UCLA Law School | |
Saturday, April 26th, 509 O'Brian Hall |
||
8:30 am 9:00 am -
12:30 pm |
Registration How to Handle a Matrimonial Case: A Nuts & Bolts Training Attorneys with little or no experience with matrimonial law will learn how to efficiently handle a divorce case from the first meeting with the client to the signing of the final divorce papers. Trainers include Hon. Janice M. Rosa, J.S.C., Patrick C. O'Reilly, Esq., Paul A. Vance, Esq., Amanda M. Warner, Esq., and Oliver Young, Esq. |
|
Papers
The papers for this conference are password protected. To access papers, enter the password you received via e-mail, or contact Ellen Kausner, ekausner@buffalo.edu to obtain password information.
Continuing Legal Education
AM Program: Pro Bono in Law School and Practice qualifies for a total of 3 non-transitional CLE credits; 1 in the area of Ethics, and 2 in the area of Professional Practice.
PM Program: Pro Bono, Senior Service, Social Change, and the Profession qualifies for a total of 3 non- transitional CLE credits; 1 in the area of Ethics, and 2 in the area of Professional Practice.All credits are non-transitional.
CLE fee is $50 for each program ($100 for both) for paid members of UB Law Alumni Association or the Bar Association of Erie County; $75 for each program ($150 for both) for all others. Checks should be made payable to "UB Foundation Activities, Inc." and sent to Ellen Kausner at the Baldy Center for Law & Social Policy, UB Law School, 511 O'Brian Hall, Buffalo, NY 14260.
Saturday's program is appropriate for both experienced and newly admitted attorneys and qualifies for 4 CLE credits in the area of Skills and Professional Practice. Training is free in exchange for a commitment to handle a pro bono divorce case within one year. For details, please contact Amanda Warner, Esq. at (716) 847-0662, ext. 19 or awarner@wnylc.com.
UB Law School has been certified by the New York State Continuing Legal Education Board as an Accredited Provider of continuing legal education in the State of New York for the period of March 11, 2005 - March 10, 2008. Our status as an Accredited Provider continues while our application for renewal is pending. The University at Buffalo Law School has a financial hardship policy. For further information on our policy, contact Lisa Mueller, CLE Coordinator, at (716) 645-3176 or lmueller@buffalo.edu.
Participants
Richard Abel, UCLA Law School
Richard Abel is Connell Professor of Law at UCLA. He has written extensively about the legal profession and cause lawyering. At UCLA, he has been faculty coordinator for the Public Interest Law Program. Professor Abel's most recent books are English Lawyers between Market and State: The Politics of Professionalism (2003), Speaking Respect, Respecting Speech (1998); and Lawyers: A Critical Reader (1997).
Cynthia Adcock, Director of Experiential Learning Programs, Charlotte Law School
Cynthia Adcock is a nationally known expert on public service programs and curricula. She was the Senior Program Manager for Leadership and Research at Equal Justice Works in Washington, DC. She served as Director of Pro Bono at the Association of American Law Schools, where she produced A Handbook on Law School Pro Bono Programs. She subsequently worked for a year as a consultant to the ABA Center for Pro Bono during which time she helped to create their on-line Directory of Public Interest and Pro Bono Programs.
Steven Boutcher, Sociology, UC Irvine
Steven Boutcher is a Ph.D. Candidate in the department of sociology at the University of California, Irvine. He is currently working on his dissertation, which examines the institutionalization of pro bono in large law firms and the relationship between pro bono and contemporary political and social causes in the United States. His other current research projects include the liberalization of global sodomy laws and the relationship between social movements and the legal system.
Scott Cummings, UCLA Law School
Scott Cummings teaches Business Associations, Professional Responsibility, and Community Economic Development. He is currently faculty chair of the Epstein Program in Public Interest Law and Policy. His scholarship focuses on the organization and practice of public interest law, and he is currently working on projects that examine the operation of small public interest firms, the development of public interest law systems abroad, and the role of lawyers in the anti-sweatshop movement in Los Angeles. Professor Cummings’ articles appear in the Stanford Law Review, California Law Review, Duke Law Journal, and the UCLA Law Review.
Chester G. Dann, Esq.
Chester (Chet) Dann is a graduate of Cornell Law School. He was as Associate at Phillips, Lytle from 1958 to 1969. He then began the legal department at Lincoln Rochester Trust Company. Mr. Dann returned to Buffalo in 1981 to be the Business Manager at Nichols School. He retired in 1992, but later spent 3 years volunteering as the Personnel Director at Warren Wilson College in Ashville, NC. Chester Dann then served as an In-House Volunteer for the ECBA Volunteer Lawyers Project 2002-2007, and was presented with two Pro Bono Awards. In 2003, he won the In-House Volunteer Attorney Pro Bono Award, and a VLP VIP Pro Bono Award in 2004.
Ronit Dinovitzer, Sociology, University of Toronto
Ronit Dinovitzer is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Toronto. She holds a PhD in Sociology from the University of Toronto. Ronit is currently engaged in research on stratification in the legal profession through her involvement with the After the JD project, the first national longitudinal study of law graduates in the US. She has also conducted research on the social organization of lawyers, the market for lawyers and legal services, and the effects of legal culture among civil litigators. Ronit's research also extends to the sociology of crime and criminal justice, including work on specialized domestic violence courts, prosecutorial decision-making, sentencing, and the effects of incarceration on offenders and their families.
Robert Elardo, Managing Attorney/CEO Erie County Bar Association Volunteer Lawyers Project
Robert Elardo has been the Managing Attorney of the Erie County Bar Association Volunteer Lawyers Project, Inc. for the past 22 years. During that time, he has also spent periods serving as President of the National Association of Pro Bono Coordinators, Co-chair of the New York Pro Bono Coordinators Network, and as a consultant to the American Bar Association's Center for Pro Bono. He was a member of the New York State Bar Association President's Committee on Access to Justice and remains a member of the NYSBA Committee on Legal Aid. He has been a trainer numerous times on pro bono topics for the ABS, NYSBA and within Erie County. Prior to starting with VLP, he was an Associate Member of the Law Faculty at Boalt Hall, University of California at Berkeley. He was awarded a Distinguished Alumnus Award by the University at Buffalo Law Alumni Association.
Cynthia Fuchs Epstein, Graduate Center, CUNY
Cynthia Fuchs Epstein, Distinguished Professor of Sociology at The Graduate Center of the City University of New York, and adjunct professor at Columbia Law School, was honored in 2004 with the ASA Jessie Bernard award for her pioneering work exploring women’s exclusion from the professions. She was President of the American Sociological Association for the year 2005 to 2006. Among her books are Woman’s Place (1970), Women in Law (1981), and her landmark theoretical work Deceptive Distinctions (1988). Perhaps her most central insight is that since women and men are far more similar than they are different-in terms of both abilities and aspirations-the exclusion of women from equal status in the workplace is without foundation and can only be attributed to inaccurate stereotypic notions of women’s lives, hopes, and abilities.
Cynthia Feathers, Former Director of Pro Bono Affairs at the New York State Bar Association
Cynthia Feathers is with the law firm of Arroyo Copland & Associates PLLC in Albany, NY. Ms. Feathers was previously pro bono affairs director for the New York State Bar Association. She has 20 years of appellate experience and handles civil and criminal appeals.
Susan Feathers, Levin Center for Public Services and Public Interest Law, Stanford University
Susan Feathers is the new executive director of the John and Terry Levin Center for Public Service and Public Interest Law at Stanford Law School, after directing the University of Pennsylvania Law School’s public service program for nine years. While there, she oversaw the school’s pro bono requirement—an effort that earned Penn Law an ABA Pro Bono Publico Award and inspired Feathers’s recent publication, Pedagogy of Service: The Impact of Mandatory Pro Bono on Post-Graduation Career Choices. Ms.Feathers has also taught and practiced human rights law, most recently serving as co-counsel on a lawsuit brought on behalf of Abu Ghraib detainees. The Levin Center was established to give focus to and provide a platform for expanding Stanford Law’s longstanding commitment to public service and public interest law.
Bryant Garth, Southwestern Law School
Dean Garth was appointed in 1990 as the Director of the American Bar Foundation (ABF), the independent nonprofit research center established by the ABA for the empirical study of law, legal institutions and legal processes. Under his guidance over the next 14 years, the Foundation became a preeminent resource for lawyers, scholars, legal educators, and policy makers throughout the world.
The author or co-author of more than 16 books and 75 articles, Dean Garth's research focus has been on the legal profession, dispute resolution, globalization and the rule of law. Drawing on this expertise, he has served as a consultant to such entities as the World Bank, the U.S. Agency for International Development and major philanthropic foundations.
Clarke Gocker, Sociology, University at Buffalo
PhD student
Robert Granfield, Sociology, University at Buffalo
Robert Granfield is professor and chair in the Department of Sociology at the State University of New York at Buffalo and is director of the Institute for the Study of Law and Urban Justice. He is also the co-founder of the Initiative on Civic Engagement and Public Policy at University at Buffalo. He is the author of four books and over 50 scholarly articles and reviews in journals including Social Problems, Law and Society Review, Sociological Quarterly, and Sociological Forum. He has two major research interests - a) the study of law and legal institutions with a particular emphasis on the legal profession and b) the sociology of alcohol and drug use with an emphasis on natural recovery from addiction. He is currently conducting research on the institutional dynamics of pro bono legal work, residential foreclosures in Buffalo, and community re-integration of formerly incarcerated drug offenders.
Leslie Levin, University of Connecticut Law School
Professor Levin teaches Lawyering Process, Legal Profession, and Evidence. She has taught at Columbia Law School (as an adjunct faculty member) and at New York University School of Law (as an instructor in the Lawyering Program). Her research and writings focus on professional responsibility issues.
Kenneth A. Manning,
Kenneth Manning is a Partner in the Buffalo office of Phillips Lytle LLP where he focuses his practice on various types of litigation, including corporate litigation, class action defense and products liability defense. He has been involved in community and professional activities, including serving as chairman of his firm's Pro Bono Committee, participating in the Volunteer Criminal Appeals Program in Erie County, and serving as a Board Member of the Volunteer Lawyers Project for Erie County. Mr. Manning is currently a member of the Dean's Advisory Council for both the UB Engineering School and the Law School, and is a member of the Endowment Fund Committee of the Erie County Bar Foundation, which serves as a source for the Large Law Firm Pro Bono Project in Erie County. Mr. Manning has received various awards, including the NCCJ Brotherwood/Sisterhood award for outstanding leadership in promoting goodwill and understanding in our community, and has been named as one of the Best Lawyers in America (personal injury and commercial litigation).
Lynn Mather, Director of the Baldy Center for Law and Social Policy, University at Buffalo Law School
Lynn Mather held the Nelson A. Rockefeller Chair in Government at Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire prior to moving to Buffalo in 2002.. While at Dartmouth, Mather served as department chair, acting director of the Rockefeller Center for the Social Sciences and, in 1995, was awarded the Dartmouth College Distinguished Teaching Award.
A leading scholar in the field of law and society, Mather has published over thirty articles and chapters on lawyers, legal professionalism, women in the legal profession, courts in popular culture, litigation against tobacco, trial courts and public policy, divorce mediation, plea bargaining, and the transformation of disputes. Her most recent book (co-authored),
Divorce Lawyers at Work: Varieties of Professionalism in Practice (Oxford University Press, 2001) received the C. Herman Pritchett Award from the American Political Science Association for the best book in the field of law and courts.
An active member of the international Law and Society Association, Mather served as treasurer for two terms and as LSA president in 2001-2002.
Karen Mathis, Immediate past president, American Bar Association
Karen Mathis is a partner in the Denver office of McElroy, Deutsch, Mulvaney & Carpenter, LLP. She has been active in the American Bar Association for more than 25 years. Ms. Mathis is the Immediate Past President of the Association. She served as Chair of the Commission on Women in the Profession from 1997 - 2000. She was the Association's second highest officer, Chair of its House of Delegates, July 2000-August 2002. Karen Mathis served as Chair of the 30,000 member ABA General Practice, Solo and Small Firm Section in 2002-2003. She is a member of the Denver, Colorado, and American Bar Associations, and belongs to the ABA Sections on General Practice, Real Property, Probate and Trust, and Taxation. Ms. Mathis is admitted to the state and federal courts in Colorado, the U.S. Tax Court, the U.S. Supreme Court and the U.S. Court of Military Appeals. She has also been named as a Super Lawyer in Colorado for 2008.
Francis Offerman, Esq.
Francis Offermann is a practicing attorney in Buffalo, having graduated from Canisius College in 1949, and Georgetown University Law Center in 1951. After having served as law clerk to Judge James Proctor of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit 1951-1953, he practiced at the firm of Phillips, Lytle in Buffalo. In 1956 he founded the Buffalo law firm which is now Offermann, Cassano, Greco, Slisz & Adams, LLP. He has served on various Bar Association of Erie County Committees, including the Grievance, Ethics, and Judiciary Committees, and was President of the Bar Association of Erie County in 1984-1985. He also was a member of the House of Delegates and the Executive Committee of the New York State Bar Association, as well as Vice President of the NYSBA for several years.
Peter Pitegoff, University of Maine Law School
Peter Pitegoff is Dean of the University of Maine School of Law. He joined Maine Law in July 2005 after seventeen years as a law professor at the University at Buffalo Law School, State University of New York, where he also served for seven years as vice dean for academic affairs. He teaches corporation law, business transactions, labor policy, community development law, nonprofit organization law, and legal ethics. He has worked and written extensively in the areas of economic development, labor and industrial organization, nonprofit corporations, employee ownership and alternative enterprise forms, welfare and employment policy, and urban revitalization.
Deborah Rhode, Stanford Law School
Deborah Rhode is one of the nation’s leading scholars in the fields of legal ethics and professional responsibility. A prolific author of articles and books on the regulation and reform of the legal profession, she has headed Stanford Law School’s Keck Center on Legal Ethics and the Legal Profession, and is the founding director of Stanford University’s Center on Ethics. Professor Rhode is also a renowned scholar on the legal status of women and feminist approaches to jurisprudence, and has served as chair of the American Bar Association Commission on Women and the Profession, and director of Stanford University’s Institute for Research on Women and Gender. A former president of the Association of American Law Schools, Professor Rhode is also a regular columnist for the National Law Journal.
Hon. Janice M. Rosa, NYS Supreme Court Justice
Rebecca Sandefur, Sociology, Stanford University
Professor Sandefur's work is at the intersection of the sociology of law and the sociology of inequality. In exploring the relationships between civil (as opposed to criminal) law and social class inequality, she finds it instructive to focus on different parts of the class structure. Professor Sandefur's current project compares the problem-solving strategies of poor and low-to-moderate income households, while a second investigates the sources of wage inequality within professional occupations.
John Henry Schlegel, University at Buffalo Law School
Professor Schlegel currently teaches in the corporate/commercial area about the getting and spending of clients, a topic that is covered in both first year and upper division courses. He is part of the faculty group that offers the financial transactions concentration, teaching both acquisition transactions and in the concentration's colloquium.
For over twenty years Professor Schlegel’s scholarship was focused on the history of legal education and the activities in the Twenties and Thirties of a group of scholars at Columbia, Yale and John Hopkins known as the American Legal Realists. While Professor Schlegel continues to publish in this area, about five years ago he began a book on law and economy in the United States since World War I. This project is centered in understanding the Fifties economy and its social consequences, seen locally in Buffalo, more generally in the national economy of the time and in the run of economic change in this eighty year period.
Deborah Schmedemann, William Mitchell College of Law
Professor Schmedemann has been teaching at William Mitchell College of Law since 1982, including a five-year stint as associate dean for skills and clinics. During her first sabbatical, Schmedemann obtained a graduate degree in human resource management and conducted empirical research into creation of employment contracts. During her second sabbatical, she served as a volunteer legal services lawyer in eastern Kentucky. Drawing on these sabbaticals, Deborah Schmedemann spent her third sabbatical studying pro bono from an empirical perspective, including surveys of over 1,000 law students and lawyers. In addition to contracts and employment law, Professor Schmedemann teaches legal research and writing and has co-authored ten editions of two texts. Her pro bono work includes representing children in the foster care system and a brief advice service about employment law for women in of limited means.
Hon. Rose H. Sconiers, NYS Supreme Court Justice
Justice Sconiers is a former Judge of the City Court of Buffalo, former Executive Attorney of the Legal Aid Bureau of Buffalo, Inc., and former Corporation Counsel for the City of Buffalo. Justice Sconiers is a Past President of the Eighth Judicial District Supreme Court Justices Association; Past President, Minority Bar Association of Western New York; Past Presiding Member of the Judicial Council, New York State Bar Association; Member, House of Delegates, New York Bar Association; and Fellow of the New York Bar Foundation. Justice Sconiers is active in community affairs and has received numerous awards for her service.
Ann Southworth, Case Western Reserve University School of Law
Professor Southworth's scholarship is primarily empirical research on the legal profession. She is particularly interested in lawyers who serve political causes – their work, norms, and professional relationships. Her early publications considered civil rights and poverty lawyers, adding to a large existing body of research on lawyers who serve causes associated with America’s political left. Several years ago, she began studying lawyers who represent organizations that speak for conservative causes, defined broadly to include positions advocated by the libertarian, social conservative, and business constituencies that have united behind the Republican Party during the past few decades. She explores who these lawyers are, the roles they play in American politics, and relationships among them. Her forthcoming book, Righting the Profession and Professionalizing the Right: Lawyers of the American Conservative Coalition (University of Chicago Press, forthcoming) examines class and cultural conflict among such lawyers.
Anthony Szczygiel, University at Buffalo Law School
Tony Szczygiel's clinical research has focused on payment for and access to long term care. He has served as the Director or co-director of the Law School’s Clinical Education Program since September 2000.
Professor Szczygiel supervises law students and handles health care cases in the William and Mary Foster Legal Services for the Elderly Clinic that he started in 1983. As a grantee under Title III of the Older American’s Act, LSED cannot charge fees to the clients it serves.Szczygiel has made over three hundred presentations to bar associations, CLE seminars, medical staffs, advocate organizations, senior citizen and other community groups, nursing groups, and others on the topics of his research.
For the past three years, he has been a member of the New York State Eighth Judicial District Pro Bono Committee. He served on the Farmworker Legal Services of New York Board of Directors for 13 years (nine as president) and, more recently, on Neighborhood Legal Services’ Board of Directors for 8 years (1 as president). He was a member of the Board of Directors at the Northwest Buffalo Community Health Care Center from 1998 to 2004.
Amanda Warner, Esq., Volunteer Lawyers Project
Amanda M. Warner. is the Eighth Judicial District's Pro Bono Coordinator, a Staff Attorney position at the Erie County Bar Association Volunteer Lawyers Project. She is responsible for collaborating with and implementing the goals of the Eighth Judicial District’s Pro Bono Committee by recruiting and supporting volunteer attorneys throughout the District. Prior to joining VLP, Ms. Warner was an associate in the Matrimonial Department at the law firm of Lipsitz Green Scime Cambria LLP.
Lucie White, Harvard Law School
Lucie White's research is related to poverty and social inequality, particularly in Africa, and is focused on how lawyers and students can make a difference in alleviating the problems of African poverty. White teaches about economic and social rights, work and development. Professor White's research centers on anti-poverty law, policy, pedagogy, human rights, and social justice issues. In collaboration with other scholars and activists through Harvard's Africa Initiative, White is conducting research on African human rights work, with particular emphasis on economic and social rights. Representative publications include Hard Labour: Woman and Work in the Post-Welfare Era (with Joel Handler, eds., Sharpe, 1998), and "The Transformative Potential of Clinical Legal Education" in the Osgoode Hall Law Journal (1997).
George Zimmerman, Schop & Pleskow
George Zimmerman was admitted to the Bar of the State of New York in 1949, the United States Tax Court in 1964, and the United States Supreme Court in 1970. He received his B.A. from Holy Cross College in 1944 and his J.D. from the University of Buffalo in 1949. He is an adjunct professor at the University at Buffalo Law School. Mr. Zimmermann was President of the Erie County Bar Association 1986-1987. He also served for several years as a member of the Board of Directors for the ECBA Volunteer Lawyers Project, and was awarded the ECBA Volunteer Lawyers Project Pro Bono Awards for the Attorney of the Morning Program in 1993 and 2004.
Parking and Directions
For Thursday night at the Main-Seneca Building, 237 Main Street; There is a parking lot, Pro Parking, on Washington Street next to the back entrance of the bulding and directly across the street from Dunn Tire Park. For Friday at UB Law School; Parking on campus is at a premium. Having a parking tag will not guarantee you a spot. Therefore, we suggest that you park in the Center for Tomorrow Visitors' Lot on Flint Drive, just north of Maple Rd. From there, take the green shuttle to the Flint Loop. O'Brian Hall is on your right as you exit the shuttle. Allow an additional 10 minutes from the parking lot to O'Brian Hall.