Getting started is easy. Put Something Back offers opportunities for attorneys to contribute in ways that fit their experience, interests, and schedules.You can:
Put Something Back helps make these opportunities accessible by connecting volunteer attorneys with screened cases, offering training, providing access to experienced mentors, and making resources available to support their work. These resources can be especially valuable to attorneys who wish to explore a new practice area or take on a matter outside their usual day-to-day work.
You do not have to know everything before you begin. You need a willingness to help, a commitment to serving your client, and the professional judgment to seek guidance when necessary. With appropriate training and support, pro bono service can become a rewarding and manageable part of your practice.
Pro Bono Makes Us Better Lawyers, Too
The benefits of pro bono service extend beyond the clients we serve. It can make us better attorneys and remind us why we chose this profession in the first place.
Pro bono work provides opportunities to develop new skills, learn unfamiliar areas of law, strengthen communication and problem-solving abilities, and gain a deeper understanding of the challenges our clients face. It calls on us to listen carefully, exercise compassion, and see legal problems through the eyes of the people experiencing them.
It also reconnects us with the fundamental purpose of our profession. In the demands of a busy practice, it can be easy to focus on deadlines, billable hours, and the next case. Pro bono service reminds us that our work has a human dimension that extends far beyond the documents we prepare or the arguments we make.
There is a special satisfaction in knowing that your time and expertise helped someone protect their family, secure their rights, or regain a sense of stability during a difficult period. Those experiences are a source of professional pride and a powerful reminder of the good lawyers can accomplish when they serve others.
Florida Bar Rule 4-6.1 recognizes this responsibility. The rule encourages eligible members of The Florida Bar to provide at least 20 hours of pro bono legal service to the poor annually or, alternatively, make an annual contribution of at least $350 to a legal aid organization. This professional responsibility is aspirational rather than mandatory, but its message is clear: service to those in need is an important part of being a lawyer.
Meeting that responsibility is an opportunity to put our professional values into practice. And we do not have to do it alone. Through programs such as Put Something Back, attorneys can find meaningful ways to serve while drawing on the experience and support of a broader legal community.
Give Your Time. Share Your Expertise. Put Something Back.
Our community has given us opportunities, professional relationships, and the privilege of practicing law. We can give back by ensuring that people who lack financial resources are not denied a meaningful opportunity to seek justice.
The next pro bono opportunity may be a case that takes only a few hours, a client who needs a brief consultation, or a family whose future depends on having someone stand beside them. Whatever the matter, your involvement can make a difference.
I encourage every attorney and law firm to take the next step: explore the opportunities available through Put Something Back, volunteer for a legal clinic, accept a case, mentor another attorney, or support the organizations working every day to expand access to justice.
The promise of justice for all cannot be fulfilled by the courts alone. It requires a legal community willing to turn its knowledge into action and its professional privilege into public service.
Give your time. Give your expertise. Give the gift of access to justice.
And in doing so, put something back into the community that has given so much to all of us.
