Non profit
Retired lawyers bring democracy to the world
A new option for lawyers nearing the end of their careers in need of a new and idealistic challenge has appeared under the form of "the International Lawyers Project", which promises to use lawyers skills in a global fight for Human Rights and democracy
di Staff
They call themselves the Peace Corps for lawyers. Not newbies, these are senior lawyers, many already retired, most partners, with comfortable nest eggs that allow them to work abroad for weeks, or even months, with no pay.
They are the International Senior Lawyers Project, which has taken one of the legal profession’s best traditions – pro bono work, usually on behalf of the poor – on the road, globally.
It helps that many are from politically well-connected major firms, where pro bono is still a calling card to attract – and retain -the best students. It also appeals to the public spiritedness that attracted many to the profession in the first place, idealism that may have been sidetracked during busy careers spent representing the powerful and well-heeled.
Now these seasoned legal guns (a quarter are retired) have a chance to indulge that idealism – and a troubled world, where the rule of law is often more aspirational than actual, is their beneficiary.
“The need is huge,” says Jean Berman, ISLP’s executive director, who on a recent exploratory trip to Haiti identified a dozen worthy projects in short order.
This past year, 57 volunteers worked on 76 different projects in 22 countries from Zambia to Afghanistan. That’s a 50 percent increase from the previous year, reflecting strong supply-side interest from lawyers and growing demand from around world as word spreads that some of the best legal advice money can buy can be had for free.
Altogether, ISLP volunteers and their law firms last year devoted 38,000 hours pro bono, calculated as being worth $12.4 million.
The organization recently expanded into Europe with a satellite office in Paris. That move helps staff work in Spanish-speaking and Francophone countries – such as Mali, where 500,000 live in legal trans-generational slavery.
While pro bono is an Anglo-Saxon legal tradition (in France, the state assumed more complete responsibility for legal representation), Berman sees ISLP as part of a growing global pro bono movement fuelled in part by demographics, including the swelling ranks of retiring baby boomer lawyers who came of age in the idealistic ’60s, and the increasing reach of many law firms with offices around the globe.
Those trends came together for two wizened Washington, D.C.-based international lawyers with activist track records during a 1999 lunch where they contemplated retirement but yearned to stay active. The pair – Anthony Essaye (who spent three years with the Peace Corps soon after its 1961 debut) and Robert Kapp – was sure many others felt the same. And so ISLP was conceived.
Two years later – on Sept. 10, 2001 – Essaye and Kapp opened a rent-free office above New York’s Grand Central Station at Clifford Chance, Essaye’s former employer.
ISLP is already much larger than either co-founder had imagined. Now, the challenge is more managing growth without sacrificing quality, Essaye explained.
Source: www.miller-mccune.com
