Getting serious about pro bono

New York has become the first state to require lawyers to perform pro bono work as a condition of bar admission:

The approximately 10,000 lawyers who apply to the New York State Bar each year will have to demonstrate that they have performed 50 hours of pro bono work to be admitted, Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman said. He said the move was intended to provide about a half-million hours of badly needed legal services to those with urgent problems, like foreclosure and domestic violence.

I appreciate the intent behind this new rule, though I fear that it might lead to needy clients having to rely on lawyers who don't really want to help them and don't have the competence to do so effectively.  Further, a new law school graduate struggling with debt and unable to find paying work may wonder why lawyers bear a burden that other professions do not.  This is one of the reasons why our 50-hour public service graduation requirement at St. Thomas is not limited to legal work: we are not obliged to help our neighbor because we're lawyers, but because we are all children of God.