American Bar Association (ABA)

American Bar Association (ABA)

321 North Clark Street

Chicago, IL 60654
312-988-5000



Since 1920, when Charles Evans Hughes prodded the American Bar Association into establishing a Special Committee on Legal Aid, the ABA "has been a firm supporter of the private legal... movements" (Council, 1976, p. 284).

Today, the ABA is a vastly different organization than in the days of Hughes. Most important, it is much larger, representing more than 320,000 lawyers in the United States and 40,000 law students. In short, the ABA describes itself as "the largest professional organization in the world."

Nonetheless, the ABA has continued, if not strengthened, its commitment to legal aid through a variety of mechanisms. First, it recognizes the National Legal Aid and Defender Association* as "an affiliate organization," providing it with money and representation. Second, it has worked diligently to promote pro bono work. In 1975, it adopted a resolution, stating "that it is a basic professional responsibility of each lawyer engaged in the practice of law to provide public interest legal services" in one or more areas: poverty, civil rights and public rights law, charitable organization representations, and the administration of justice.

Encouraged by the ABA, many state and local bar associations also play extremely active roles in legal aid, legal services, and public interest law programs. In some instances, bar associations sponsor county, city, or statewide legal services programs; in Alabama, for example, the various regional offices of the Legal Services Corporation receive support from locally operated bars.

Other bar associations performs an array of pro bono activities. In California, the state bar operates a Voluntary Legal Services Program, which, in part, "provides fundraising assistance to local projects." In Los Angeles County, alone, the bar sponsors organizations including the Mental Health Advocacy Services Pro Bono Project, a Volunteer Lawyers Project, and Westside Legal Services.

State and local bar associations support and/or sponsor 504 pro bono-type programs throughout the United States. To facilitate pro bono work, the ABA has established public service commissions in a variety of areas. The Young Lawyers Division of the ABA, for example, created a National Legal Resource Center for Child Advocacy and Protection. One of the center's major goals is "to stimulate interest in the representation of maltreated children."

Finally, the ABA has a continuing interest in the delivery of legal services through one of its divisions, the Legal Services Group, which provides support services for several of the ABA's committees concerned with providing legal care to the public. Among these committees are the Special Committee on the Delivery of Legal Services, which reviews the development of legal care provided by private and bar associations; the Standing Committee on Legal Aid and Indigent Defendants, which acts as the ABA's liaison with the Legal Service Corporation; and the Special Committee on Prepaid Legal Services, which monitors "state and federal regulation with the aim of promoting greater use and acceptance of the concept of prepaid legal services."

In addition to providing support mechanisms, the ABA itself participates in litigation as amicus curiae, a tactic it has used throughout its history. Typically, the ABA files such briefs at the request of one of its sections or commissions. In Kremens v. Bartley (1977), for example, its Commission on the Mentally Disabled requested the association to support the claim that the Fourteenth Amendment's due process clause requires "minimal procedural safeguards" before a child could be committed to a mental institution. The ABA, of course, does not grant all such requests. In fact, "The Association has a general policy which limits the filing of amicus briefs to cases with special or unique circumstances. The position sought to be advanced by a brief must be consistent with previously adopted policy of the Association, a matter of impelling public interest ... or a case of significance to lawyers and the legal profession."

The last criterion-significance to lawyers is, of course, of paramount concern. Although the ABA has done a great deal to further the legal aid movement, it is first and foremost the representative of all lawyers in the United States. Consider its participation as an amicus curiae in Pennsylvania v. Delaware Valley Citizens Council (1986) involving the calculation of the award of attorneys' fees "chargeable to a losing defendant under the Clean Water Act." In supporting the council's claim, the ABA noted that:

The ABA's membership includes many lawyers who regularly represent plaintiffs in civil rights, antitrust and other types of federal litigation in which, by statute, the court is empowered to award a "reasonable attorney's fee" to the prevailing party. For such practitioners, such a statutory fee award is often the only, or the only significant, prospective source of compensation for services performed. The ABA's membership also encompasses many attorneys who represent plaintiffs in fee-shifting cases primarily on a pro bono basis and who rarely, if at all, accept employment on a contingent basis. Although the perspectives of these portions of its membership differ, the ABA believes that all of its members have a strong interest in the proper application of federal fee-shifting statutes and that the principle at issue in this Court is one as to which its members are in substantial accord: where a lawyer's compensation depends upon his client's success, he may permissibly charge, and in a fee-shifting case may permissibly be awarded, a larger fee than where his compensation is not thus contingent. (Brief filed on September 23, 1986)

FURTHER INFORMATION:

• "A Checklist of American Bar Association materials in the Wilson Nelson Cromwell Library of the American Bar Foundation" (updated periodically by the AB Foundation).
• American Bar Association (1986). Directory of Private Bar Involvement. The ABA also publishes many reports, manuals, and other material. See generally, the American Bar Association Journal.
• Martin, G. (1970). Causes and Conflicts.(Boston: Houghton Mifflin).
• Sunderland, E. R. (1953). History of the American Bar Association and Its Work (n. p.).