University law students have won the Oregon State Bar’s Pro Bono Challenge for the third time in as many years. The competition tracks pro bono hours donated by practicing attorneys and students at Oregon law schools.
Jane Steckbeck, assistant director for Career Services at the University School of Law, said law students reported 11,214 pro bono hours in 2003, which makes up 71.5 percent of the state total of 15,686 hours. She added that at law clerk wages, the students’ work was worth approximately $134,568.
All the hours were performed by 112 law students.The law school faculty determined the definition of pro bono work as “work directly related to the delivery of legal services to indigent individuals by attorneys or organizations.” It can also be work for an attorney on behalf of an organization, work related to the administration of the University’s pro bono program or law-related work for different levels of the government, except law enforcement.
A group of “passionate” law students who were already doing pro bono work on their own started the program in 1996, Steckbeck said.
She added that students asked law faculty to make pro bono work a part of graduation requirements, but the faculty voted to make the program voluntary and reevaluate it at a later time.
It will most likely remain a voluntary program because the budget and funding aren’t available to staff such a requirement, Steckbeck said.
She said there are many reasons why law students participate in pro bono work. Some believe it is their professional responsibility to provide access to justice for those who need it, and they have a deep desire to use their law experience to help people. Others turn to pro bono work to develop skills in law, build their résumés and, they hope, obtain references they can use to get future jobs.
She added that many students participate in pro bono work because it can lay a foundation for a career in public service.
“I think there’s a perception that public interest jobs are easy to get, perhaps because they’re low paying,” she said. “That’s actually very untrue. Public interest jobs are very competitive and students who volunteer with an organization have an advantage when it comes to hiring for a permanent position.”
Graduating third-year law student Sarah Drescher has been doing pro bono work since her first year as a law student. She estimates that she has done more than 200 hours of pro bono work, and tonight she will be receiving the law school’s Outstanding Service Impact Award.
Most of her pro bono hours have been spent working with the American Civil Liberties Union. She said the organization needed help responding to complaints from Oregon prisoners.
Last summer, she took on a project on behalf of the prisoners at the Jackson County Jail. She said the prisoners complained of overcrowding and wanted to have their own beds so they would not have to sleep on the floor, Drescher said. Within weeks of beginning to work on the lawsuit with the ACLU, the jail settled and got enough beds for all of the prisoners.
Drescher said she enjoys doing civil rights work and wants to continue with that after graduation.
“I’m always going to continue doing pro bono,” she said, adding that it has contributed to her law school and life experience.
Steckbeck said that students such as Drescher usually continue doing pro bono work after leaving college.
“Once they start doing it, it feels really good,” Steckbeck said.
In addition to pro bono work for local organizations, many students earn pro bono hours by participating in the Street Law program, which returned after a hiatus in the fall of 2002.
The program has law students teach classes on various topics to the Eugene community, such as a “first time renter” course for undergraduates and a search and seizure course for middle- and high-school students.
Next year, the Street Law program hopes to add a course on how to buy a used car and another on gay and lesbian legal issues.
Another large portion of the 11,214 pro bono hours are attributed to the peer court system, which has law students act as judges and assistants in a peer court at several high schools in the Eugene area.