I’ve always been eager to do pro bono work. I went to law school with the intent of helping the indigent upon graduation, but then with a six-figure debt load, I went to BigLaw in New York and Miami, and then corporate America so that I could pay that debt off. But even as an associate and as in house counsel, I dutifully accepted pro bono cases. As a relatively new academic, I paid my way out of pro bono for the first couple of years as Florida allows and assuaged my guilt with the knowledge that my payments were going to fund the local legal aid office.

This year, as a condition of attending a family law CLE for free, I volunteered to take a case. I’ve devoted over 70 hours to it thus far, and we still aren’t finished even after today’s marathon 6.5 hour hearing dealing with a motion for contempt and enforcement, modification of alimony and child support, a QDRO (qualified domestic relations order), and a house in foreclosure. The case was complicated even according to my seasoned family law practitioner friends.

As a former litigator and current BA professor, I found that my skills helped to make up for my lack of family law expertise. The techniques for cross examining witnesses, preparing for hearing, and introducing exhibits came flooding back. From a BA perspective, knowing to ask questions about the structure of the petitioner’s LLC, inquiring about charging orders, and dissecting the financial statements and corporate tax returns put me in a much better position to protect my client’s interests. I always tell my students on the first day of BA that they never know where they will end up as practitioners, and that in today’s market many of them will be in small firms taking on a number of kind of clients. I try to make them understand how BA can help them in practice areas that don’t seem directly related to business. Now, thanks to this pro bono case I can back that up with proof from my own experience.