Your invitation to speak at the celebration of pro bono, National Pro Bono Week about CoProduction and Timebanking conveyed an “out-of-the-box” approach to our joint calling as Servants of Justice. It implied that just possibly, you at LawWorks believed that advancing justice might need to enlist both clients and the community as co-workers and partners.
I do not need to tell you how critically your services are needed or how much unmet need remains. The awesome Clinics reports that LawWorks publish detail the volume, variety and range of cases handled pro bono through the clinics network. Reading them, I was reminded of the exchange in Henry IV when Glendower boasts “I can call spirits from the vasty deep”. And Hotspur’s reply “Why so can I, or so can any man. But will they come when you do call them?” The pro bono week celebration declares: “You come when you are called.”
Thus, your invitation to speak about Co-Production and TimeBanking in the context of pro bono provided me with this opportunity to sound this call: “What can we do, in these troubled times, to advance justice given the constraints, fiscal, ideological and political, with which we must cope?”
First, the cut-back in funding for legal aid is a disgrace. You fought but could not stem the tide. Can you find ways to document the cases - highlight the stories of those turned away, and those let down by the system? Let us turn that setback into a turning point in the struggle.
Second, lawyers are more than service providers. We are social architects. As such, we can create new institutions and new vehicles to advance justice. Why not create your own innovation unit to develop new ideas and document successful innovations? One example I was involved in: a Youth Court where teens are the jurors empowered to sentence their peers to community service, restitution and jury duty. Such courts in the USA have reduced recidivism from 34% to 6%.
Third, partner with local TimeBanks (operated by TimebankingUK, Spice, and the CoProduction Network), so that pro bono hours earned can link you to community - in ways that turn neighbours from strangers into a new kind of extended family.
Fourth, create a Pro Bono TimeCredit Foundation to which law firms can contribute TimeCredit earned, and which can then make grants of Time Credits to local institutions to enable them to secure volunteers from local TimeBanks.
Fifth, find ways to promote co-production with funders (public, private and philanthropic) so that institutions that now deliver help to those in need will be rewarded if they enlist those whom they help to become co-producers of hope and possibility.
Sixth, bring your celebration of pro bono week to the bar in the United States, to help remind us that our shared lineage can be continuously reborn and renewed by acts of decency and caring and justice.