Plan "B" - Scrounging For Solo Work

"Tom--

I've got a good one for you--mandatory pro bono assignments. I just got off the phone with some bureaucratic drone who's about to stick me with one, so I'm fit to be tied.

I've been temping for almost nine years, but in order to keep my head above water, I also handle real estate closings, municipal court work and anything else I can scare up. In New Jersey this means I've got to have an office--not just a mail drop and a telephone answering machine. So like a lot of other attorneys I have a home office.

Here's the catch--if you practice law in New Jersey and you maintain an office, you're subject to being screwed by the legal establishment yet again by being assigned a pro bono matter, usually from the Family Part of Superior Court. Like a lot of attorneys in my position, I haven't been able to afford malpractice insurance for years. Plus, I haven't handled a family law matter in least 15 years. Not to mention the time I've got to take off from an assignment to meet with my client in this shotgun marriage and represent them in court.

It shouldn't come as a surprise that the legal establishment is incredibly hypocritical about this. Law is the only profession with this type of imposed slavery, and the Big Law partners and corporate counsels never do their own pro bono assignments--they just buck them down the line to the junior guy on the totem pole. I know this for a fact because I used to work in a corporate legal department, and we juniors had to handle not only own pro bono assignments, but the Big Guy's, too."