A CLASSIC case of caring

Originally Published:
Planet S Magazine
April 26- May 9, 2007 Volume 5: Issue 18
Page 14

It’s a simple fact that all professions are beset with stereotypes: computer scientists are caricatured as nerdy, professors as absentminded, accountants are obsessively methodical and timid, while actors are short on discipline and long on self-importance. Journalists? Well, put another double scotch on my tab and gimme the receipt so I can write it off.

Still, no one has it as bad as lawyers.

There are probably more lawyer-jokes than jokes about all other professions combined, and we all know a few. But that’s not the worst of it, because quantity isn’t the only thing that sets lawyer jokes apart: so does cruelty. Most of these jokes depend on the assumption that lawyers are basically bad people, interested only in money and willing to screw others over for more of it. One joke goes: “It was so cold last winter that I saw a lawyer with his hands in his own pockets.” Another: “A man walked into a lawyer's office and inquired about the lawyer's rates. ‘$50.00 for three questions,’ replied the lawyer. ‘Isn't that kinda steep?’ asked the man while doling out the $50.00. ‘Yes,’ answered the lawyer, ‘what's your third question?’” Pretty funny, right?

But are all lawyers really this evil, corrupt, and manipulative? Of course not.

Pro bono publico is a Latin phrase that means “for the public good.” And no other phrase does a better job of describing the free legal representation and advice lawyers and law students provide the economically underprivileged. But let’s make things very clear: these activities are not simply isolated acts of kindness and generosity. The Canadian legal system expects a great commitment to pro bono work from its members, and lawyers—as well as young law students—have answered this call with great conviction and determination.

Luckily, we don’t have to go far to find such individuals. Planet S spoke with Judy Busch about the workers for the public good in Saskatoon—at least in the form of the legal clinic she co-founded, Community Legal Assistance Services for Saskatoon’s Inner City Inc. (CLASSIC).

“It’s a non-profit corporation that [myself] and three other students started about two years ago, and what we do is provide free legal services, like legal representation and legal advice, to low-income people in Saskatoon and basically anywhere in the province as long as they can get to us.”

This sort of organisation is sorely needed, considering the costs of legal services—costs that are often far out of reach for economically underprivileged citizens, says Busch.

“A lawyer can cost you $5,000 for one case, and some people just can’t do that—so there’s a huge need for this sort of thing. There are just so many people that can’t afford this, so we have tons of clients—[which] brings me to why we started this project in the first place. There’s something called the Saskatoon Free Legal Clinic which students, as well as myself, were involved in, but it was all volunteer lawyers.

“Volunteer lawyers, unfortunately, cannot commit a whole lot of time to pro bono work. We just found that there was a greater demand for their services than there were lawyers with the time to help, so the clinic was booked too far in advance sometimes. And when a client was helped, it still wasn’t enough because the kind of service they needed [often] couldn’t be done within the limited time-frame of a volunteer lawyer, who could normally only give about half an hour. So we thought it would be better if students did most of the work, with a little help from a supervising lawyer.”

Of course, the Canadian legal system does provide some aid to low-income people in need of legal services—they’re not completely left to fend for themselves. But as Busch explains, there are still major cracks in the Canadian legal aid program, and it’s the goal of CLASSIC, and other like-minded legal clinics, to fill them in.

“Legal aid covers family law and criminal law. We cover anything that legal aid doesn’t cover. So we cover what the lawyers would call administrative law: labour disputes; all the government services stuff like SGI, EI, etc.; and police complaints,” she says.

Low-income people in need of legal services aren’t the only ones facing high costs, however—so is the organisation looking to help them, says Busch.

“Our biggest expense is a [supervising] lawyer—we have a part-time lawyer, but now that our funding has come through we’re looking for a full-time lawyer. We also need someone to run the office, and we also hire two student-managers to work part-time, to coordinate student volunteers over the school year. Luckily, White Buffalo Youth Lodge allows us to use their space rent-free.”

In addition to the generosity of the White Buffalo Youth Lodge, Busch says that the provincial government and various community organisations are also lending a hand with CLASSIC’s financial load.

“We got funding from the provincial government [of] $50,000, and the Law Foundation of Saskatchewan has given us a commitment of $75,000 per year. And from the University we got about $100,000, [while] the Urban Aboriginal Strategy also paid for some of our start-up costs.”

There is a sense among many members of the legal profession—and certainly those that have worked so hard to get CLASSIC off the ground—that it is their moral obligation to volunteer at least some of their time to helping those with legal needs and without the resources to meet them. And Busch, along with her colleagues, agrees with Canada’s Law Societies, which view pro bono work as an obligation. So, let’s see: members of society’s most maligned profession, along with the organising bodies that govern them, working to provide all the representation and advice an educated and privileged class can give to those that can’t otherwise afford it? I guess maybe those lawyer jokes aren’t so funny after all.