I went to the European Pro Bono Forum in November expecting to be welcomed with open arms as an emissary of America’s expansive pro bono culture. I found London’s pro bono leaders suspicious of efforts to boost pro bono, and hostile to the American model. With good reason.
America gives the poor generous pro bono relief in the bombed-out ruins of the state’s retreat from legal services. We deny skin graft surgery, then lavish the patient with Band-Aids. In a nation where public neglect of the poor’s legal needs is assumed, private attention is only to be praised. But what of a land where the debate over legal aid is still raging? Does boosting pro bono give the government an excuse to gut legal services? That is the excruciating paradox of pro bono in Britain today.
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