Lawyers are living longer, and they have the intellectual and physical capabilities of continuing to practice law well beyond the age when many lawyers have retired in the past.  This has led to discussions and tensions about the role of senior lawyers in their firms.  See Susan Desantis, Forced Retirement Policies Fading but Tensions Remain, N.Y.L.J., February 5, 2019, at 1, 9.  Senior lawyers and their firms should consider the advantages of pro bono service as a respected and satisfying next step in legal careers.  Despite the amount of pro bono work that lawyers do, there are vast unmet needs for legal services for the underrepresented—the poor and the middle class who cannot afford legal services.  This is a gap that senior lawyers could help to fill.

The justice gap is real. The poor and middle class lack the resources to obtain access to legal services to maintain or secure the essentials of life, such as housing, family needs, healthcare, education and subsistence income.  At the same time, these persons find it difficult to represent themselves effectively or even to know what legal recourse they may have.  The most recent Report of the New York State Chief Judge's Permanent Commission on Access to Justice reported that only 37 percent of legal needs were being met for New Yorkers with incomes up to 200 percent of the federal poverty level.

The size of the needy population is enormous. New York City alone has over 60 thousand people in homeless shelters, including over 20 thousand children.  According to Census Bureau statistics, over 1.6 million New York City residents live below the poverty level.  That is nearly 20 percent of the city's population.

We have in fact made great progress toward meeting the justice gap, thanks to the pioneering efforts of the chief judges of New York State who have spearheaded initiatives for public funding and other innovative approaches to pro bono legal services.  It is a great tribute to them that at least $100 million of the state judiciary budget is earmarked for civil legal services.  And the chief judge of the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has initiated a program to encourage representation of immigrants in need of legal assistance. New York City's investment in tenants' legal services grew from $6 million in 2013 to $77 million in 2018, resulting in a 27 percent drop in the number of evictions.  As a part of this investment, the city became the first in the country to adopt a right to publicly funded legal counsel in eviction cases for low-income residents.

But even with these strides, we can do better.  Lawyers have a particular responsibility to do more.  Lawyers have been given the keys to the legal system. Lawyers have a monopoly to represent clients in court, and it is through that monopoly that lawyers have been able to do very well indeed.  It is unquestionably true that lawyers do substantial pro bono work and contribute to legal aid organizations.  But lawyers can do much more.

The Rules of Professional Conduct in New York provide that every lawyer should aspire to provide at least 50 hours of pro bono legal services each year to poor persons and report their pro bono hours biennially.  Surveys done before the biennial registration requirement was instituted found that about 50 percent of lawyers in the state did not engage in any activity providing pro bono legal services of any kind, and a smaller percentage provided pro bono services to poor persons.

Senior lawyers are a vast untapped resource that can help to fill this gap.  There comes a time when lawyers slow down in their practice, and indeed some firms require senior lawyers to retire so that clients can be passed along to more junior lawyers. But these senior lawyers can and should use the opportunity to do pro bono work that will help their community, their firms, and themselves.  Senior lawyers should not let their legal abilities atrophy at a time when their legal services are so desperately needed.  It is bad for them, and it is bad for the community.

Lawyers are very competitive people. They spend their professional lives running harder and harder to achieve the next goals. It cannot be good for them to be thrown off the treadmill of the legal profession because they have reached a certain age.  And it is not good for the profession or the city that needs their talents.

It is inspirational to see senior federal judges continue to serve long after they could cease to work.  They could retire and still be paid their full salaries.  They continue to serve because they appreciate the importance of the work and the joy of public service.

The call of pro bono service is not limited to lawyers who generally do litigation.  The skills that lawyers develop, including judgment, managerial expertise and facility in dealing with complex regulations, is also needed in pro bono litigation.  As one corporate lawyer put it, if a second-year associate can learn to do pro bono work, a senior corporate lawyer should also be able to do the work.

What we need is a change in culture where firms appreciate that it is wrong to ease lawyers into retirement that they really do not want when those senior lawyers can do productive pro bono work.  Such a shift would have the immediate impact of providing assistance to those in need, and the lasting impact of showing younger lawyers that this work is important.

I recall going to a dinner some years ago where a retired lawyer from a prestigious firm explained that after he left his firm, he started a firm devoted to helping children.  He said that he had more satisfaction than he ever had practicing law with his former firm. There are many other examples. At least one retired partner I know represents persons in death row cases and uses the associates in the firm to work on the case –to the great benefit of all involved.  But these examples should be the norm and not the exception.

The Legal Aid Society has a portion of its website devoted to opportunities for senior lawyers.  The Feerick Center for Social Justice at the Fordham University School of Law provides assistance to law firms in finding appropriate projects for senior lawyers who participate in New York State's Attorney Emeritus Program.  Participants in the program have the added advantage of receiving CLE credit.

There are many creative ways that senior lawyers can do pro bono work helping the numerous people who need assistance.  Firms should understand that this is a responsibility that the firms have and that it is a terrible waste to lose the talents of their longtime partners.  It is unfair to the lawyers and to the community not to encourage senior lawyers to do pro bono work and for the firms to fail to provide an institutional setting to encourage that work.

Pro bono work should be seen as the next phase of their careers for senior lawyers–it should be the norm, not the exception.  Law firms should reward pro bono work with sufficient recognition, titles, and prestige so that such service is recognized for the important contribution that it makes to the firm and to the community.

This is also a place where bar associations can encourage their members to accommodate and promote pro bono work.  In the same way that bar associations encourage other initiatives by law firms, bar associations should encourage firms to accommodate and foster pro bono service for senior lawyers.

Think about the enormous positive impact that senior lawyers could have on the community and the great benefits to those lawyers and their firms if this enormous reservoir of talent were unleashed to do pro bono work.  We should not lose sight of the strides we have already taken to help those in need, but we should do more.

 John Koeltl is a United States District Court Judge for the Southern District of New York.