Channeling Atticus Finch
By Ronald S. Flagg
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. Most of us are familiar with the storyline. A lawyer, Atticus Finch, stands at the heart of the novel. Atticus, a solo practitioner in a small town in Alabama, defends a black man, Tom Robinson, accused of raping a white woman. Despite strong evidence that Tom is innocent, most of the town is aligned against Atticus because his client is a black man and the victim is a white woman.
Atticus Finch inspired me, and I suspect scores of others, to become a lawyer. Nonetheless, it has become fashionable in recent years to criticize Atticus as a source of inspiration, the critique generally being that Atticus did not use his legal skills to challenge more broadly the racist status quo of his hometown.[1] I believe these critiques misperceive the nature of Atticus’ inspiration. Atticus Finch is the embodiment of the duty and power of an individual lawyer to address injustice, one client at a time. It is this example, not Atticus’ trial tactics or his approach to confronting bigotry in general, that continues to inspire.
We are fortunate at the D.C. Bar to have countless members who, on a daily basis, demonstrate the profound impact a single attorney can have in correcting injustice. For example, all of the lawyers who have received the Bar’s William J. Brennan Jr. Award or Thurgood Marshall Award—lawyers such as Patricia Mullahy Fugere (The Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless), John Payton (NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc.), James Klein (Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia), and Roderic Boggs (Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs)—provide powerful models. While the mission-based approach of each of these lawyers is broad and strategic, they often further that mission one client at a time, as Atticus did. And, in pursuing their overall goals, these lawyers and Atticus share a core professional value: the use of the law to right injustice.
The Bar is devoted to public service and access to justice. More than 16,000 of our members work for the federal or local governments, and over 3,000 work for nonprofit organizations. The pro bono culture in our bar is second to none. For example, 62 firms participating in the Pro Bono Program’s Pro Bono Initiative performed more than 980,000 hours of pro bono service in 2009—approximately 97 hours per lawyer. And lawyers from every niche of our bar—government, large firms, small firms, solo practitioners, and legal services providers—actively participate in clinics sponsored by the Pro Bono Program, including the Advice and Referral Clinic held in the Anacostia and Shaw neighborhoods, the Advocacy and Justice Clinic hosted at the Bar, the Bankruptcy Clinic, the Community Economic Development Project, the Landlord Tenant Resource Center, and the Probate Resource Center. Countless members of our bar work directly with other legal services providers.
Pro bono work offers many practical rewards. For newer lawyers, for example, it provides first-chair, hands-on experience working directly with clients for whom the loss of a home, a job, veterans’ benefits, or child custody represents a personal, “bet the company” crisis. For senior lawyers, pro bono work offers the opportunity to leverage a career’s worth of experience by helping those in need; training and mentoring newer lawyers; and imparting the professional value of public service, by direct example, to younger colleagues. For both newer and senior lawyers, many who may routinely work for clients around the country or abroad, pro bono work provides a direct link to neighbors desperately in need of legal assistance, along with the opportunity to build lasting relationships with legal services providers who regularly serve the underrepresented in the community.
While these practical rewards are real and significant, at the end of the day, at least for me, the greatest source of personal and professional satisfaction is serving a client who otherwise might not have been represented. Several years ago, I received a handwritten note from the widow of a veteran who our firm had represented in the Supreme Court. She wrote: “at a point when I thought everyone had forgotten my husband and his service, you were there for us.” When colleagues at my firm express concern about their ability to provide adequate representation in landlord and tenant court and family court, or other forums in which they never previously have appeared, we respond by providing ample training, experienced mentors, and the reminder that, Without you, our client would be proceeding pro se.
Atticus Finch was not able to save Tom Robinson, much less alter attitudes and behavior in his town. Critics may say those results prove that Atticus’ tactics were not sufficiently aggressive or ambitious. But Atticus’ example was sufficiently moving to inspire several generations of young readers to pursue careers in law. And even today, Atticus provides a simple but powerful reminder of the duty of an individual lawyer to address injustice, one client at a time.
Notes
[1] See, e.g., Gladwell, Malcolm, Atticus Finch and the Limits
of Southern Liberalism, The New Yorker (August 10, 2009); Freedman,
Monroe, Atticus Finch, Esq., R.I.P., 14 Legal Times 20 (1992).
But see Parker, Kathleen, Revisionist Fire at Author Harper
Lee Should Be Dampened, The Washington Post (July 11, 2010).
