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As the First Vice President of the Bar Association, the duty falls upon me to chair the Delivery Of Legal Services Committee. The Delivery Of Legal Services Committee is a committee created by the By-Laws. It is a fundamental aspect of our Bar Association perhaps because the provision of legal services to the people in our society is the most fundamental and critical obligation of our profession.

As stated in the Preamble to the Illinois Rules Of Professional Conduct, “The practice of law is a public trust.” Among the responsibilities of lawyers identified in the Preamble is the responsibility to assure access to the legal system through the availability of competent legal counsel. In relation to the wages of most other people in our society, lawyers are paid handsomely for their time. Our passage into this profession is a privilege. There is no doubt that we have earned that right, but with that right comes the professional responsibility that is given to us in that public trust.

For many years, the Bar Association has been active in promoting and encouraging the delivery of legal services to all of the people in our local society, including those who are unable to afford those services. In the past, the Bar Association sponsored and oversaw a program of pro bono services by the voluntary contributions of members willing to provide them. In the alternative, we have requested money in the form of a “pro bono buy-out” that has been used for the administration of that program and for the provision of those services.

Since the creation of the Kane County Bar Foundation, the Bar Association has passed the baton on to the Foundation for that charitable endeavor, but the Bar Association remains inextricably linked to that fundamental responsibility that is both identified in the Rules Of Professional Conduct and in the By-Laws of our very association. Together, in partnership with Prairie State Legal Services and the Bar Foundation, legal services are provided to many people who could not otherwise afford them. Prairie State Legal Services provides the administrative oversight that is necessary for the program to function. The Bar Foundation is the fund-raising vehicle to cover those administrative and other costs. The Bar Association, in many ways, is the glue that holds it together and coordinates those efforts by soliciting, encouraging and celebrating members who perform the timeworn obligation that is placed in our trust.

As many of you know, Prairie State Legal Services operates with federal, state and other funding within a very strict set of financial and other guidelines. Funding and staff positions for Prairie State have been significantly reduced in the past years. The needs of people in our area extend beyond the limitations under which Prairie State operates. Just within the past year, other organized pro bono efforts have sprung up, including a pro bono program affiliated with Hesed House in Aurora, and a program opened and operated part-time in Elgin by KCBA Member Bruce Strom. As a Board, and as Bar Association, we celebrate the endeavors of our members to bring services to people of limited means. There is plenty of room in our area for the efforts of everyone. The needs of people in our area extend beyond all of those efforts. As a consequence, the Bar Association endeavors to expand the scope and volume of services available to meet that need.

Most of us, if not all of us, provide services pro bono to clients in our private practice that we feel are particularly deserving or particularly in need. Those efforts often go unnoticed and under-appreciated (except by those particular people), but they are no less significant or effective in meeting that professional obligation than the organized programs that exist. All attorneys have had their experiences with clients who can afford to pay, but who refuse or fail to pay, for legal services performed. I do not mean to suggest for one minute that attorneys do not provide a very valuable service in our society and that we should not be entitled to receive the value of those services we provide. Indeed our role in society is as fundamental and as necessary a function as can be found in a civilized, democratic and free society. Rather, I write to focus on the needs of those among us who are no less deserving, but who cannot afford the services we provide.

The area of greatest need, as seen by the numbers of people seeking services, is in the area of family law. Consequently, family law attorneys have historically been called upon to provide a disproportionate volume of free legal services in comparison to the remainder of the Bar. The pool of attorneys who are willing to offer those services remains steady and constant but does not grow significantly. As in any similar endeavor, a relative few provide more than their share of those services. We cannot tap much further into the resources of family law attorneys.

There are other areas of need, and we believe there are other ways in which attorneys can be of help. Attorneys can instruct people in clinics to help them represent and protect their own interests. Whereas an attorney may not have the time to devote many hours to individual representation in a particular matter, many attorneys can free up an hour or two for a pro bono clinic, during the day, at night, or on the weekend. We are putting together a program of clinics to help people file their own simple divorce cases, file their own small claims complaints or to defend their own small claims cases, to know their rights and to collect security deposits from landlords, and similar clinics. I ask each member to consider devoting an hour or two here and there to help in one of these clinics. I also invite you to give us your ideas for other clinics that might be of value to people in need.

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