Senior Lawyer Public Interest Project

The following senior lawyers, all of whom have all undertaken major public service commitments, are open to being contacted by peers with questions about developing a pro bono “second career.”

Robert M. Bruskin
Warren K. Kaplan
Robert H. Kapp
William C. Kelly
Douglas G. Robinson
Arthur P. Rogers
David Roll
James vanR. Springer
A. Duncan Whitaker

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Robert M. Bruskin
A retired partner with the law firm of Howrey Simon Arnold & White LLP, Bruskin now serves as a Senior Fellow for the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs.

A litigator with 31 years of experience handling complex commercial litigation in antitrust, intellectual property and other business areas, Bruskin began doing pro bono work relatively late in his career. In 1999, Bruskin began working with the Washington Lawyers’ Committee and found that he enjoyed that work far more than his regular practice.

In 2004 Bruskin decided, with the cooperation of his firm and the Committee, to transition into a full-time pro bono practice. Bruskin now litigates matters in a variety of areas, including housing discrimination, employment discrimination, and disability rights.

Warren K. Kaplan
Kaplan is an EEO Staff Attorney with the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs. Kaplan joined the committee in 1993, after 30 years of commercial litigation experience in private practice. From 1973 to 1993, he headed the litigation department of the D.C. firm of Melrod, Redman & Gartlan. During the past three decades, he has been lead counsel in many trials in the local and federal courts of the metropolitan Washington area.

At the committee, Kaplan has worked primarily on several class actions, including the committee’s landmark sexual harassment class action against the District of Columbia Department of Corrections.

Robert H. Kapp
Kapp is a tax partner at Hogan & Hartson with a long volunteer involvement in individual rights issues, especially in international issues.

At age 67, he struck a deal with his firm that he would devote 2/3 of his time to client matters, and spend the remaining 1/3 of his time on two particular pro bono projects. Kapp agreed to reduce his compensation to 2/3 of a partner share. After two years, Kapp decided he wanted to devote still more time to his pro bono projects, so effective January 2004, Kapp relinquished his partner status and became of counsel. Kapp now spends over 2/3 of his time on his two pro bono projects, and the balance on client matters.

Kapp is the co-president of the International Senior Lawyers Project, an organization he co-founded, that matches experienced lawyers with international human rights, rule of law, and economic development projects. He is also working with Mary Robinson, the former president of Ireland and United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, and others, on the Ethical Globalization Initiative, in an effort to integrate human rights issues into various globalization developments.

Kapp maintains an office and secretarial support at the firm, and can draw on other lawyers from the firm.

William C. Kelly
Kelly of Latham & Watkins helped to found Stewards of Affordable Housing for the Future, a project dedicated to assuring the continued availability of low income housing. Kelly built a successful finance and real estate practice as a partner at Latham. Through his pro bono work, Kelly saw a need and opportunity to provide low-income housing and decided “I could be more effective if I devoted full time to the effort.” At age 57 he arranged an early retirement; Latham continues to provide him with an office and logistical and pro bono support.

Douglas G. Robinson
Robinson is a partner at Skadden Arps with a successful energy litigation practice. When he reached 55, he decided that he wanted to leave behind more of a legacy than just having been a good energy lawyer. He worked out a part-time arrangement with his firm that allows him to apply his litigation skills to the representation of prisoners who have been wrongfully convicted. The additional time has also allowed him to serve on various boards and committees of public interest organizations. He considers it “the best career move I ever made.”

David Roll
In the Summer/Fall of 2005, Dave Roll persuaded Lex Mundi, a global association of some 160 top tier independent law firms consisting of almost 17,000 lawyers with more than 500 offices in 100 countries, to establish theLex Mundi Pro Bono Foundation. As a 65 year old senior partner of Steptoe & Johnson, he askedhis firm to allow him to manage the operation out of his office. The Lex Mundi Pro BonoFoundation opened its doors on January 1, 2006 and Dave has been its Managing Director since then. Dave acts as a matchmaker, matching the legal needs of social changemakers (called "social entrepreneurs") with Lex Mundi firms and lawyers.

Arthur P. Rogers
Rogers retired in December 2002 from Whiteford, Taylor & Preston after a 40-year career specializing in labor and employment law. The next month, he joined the D.C. Employment Justice Center, a non-profit legal services program representing low-wage workers and the unemployed. Rogers was looking for a way to use his skills and experience to help those who would otherwise be without representation. He advises EJC staff lawyers, supervises volunteer attorneys, and is developing and managing a network of law firms to take cases from EJC on a pro bono basis.

James vanR. Springer
Springer is a retired partner of Dickstein Shapiro Morin & Oshinsky LLP, where he handled antitrust and other litigation for both plaintiffs and defendants, with a particular emphasis on appellate practice.After retiring at age 70, he joined the Legal Aid Society of DC as a Volunteer Staff Attorney, working at Legal Aid ’s office three days a week except for the summer months (when Legal Aid is happy to have his space to house summer legal interns).

At Legal Aid, Springer does the hands-on work of a regular staff attorney, spending two afternoons a week on client intake and the remainder of his time dealing with public benefits problems. Springer chose the public benefits part of Legal Aid’s practice for two reasons: because it is a complex, interesting and important area of the law that was entirely new to him, and because it generally does not involve litigation. It therefore both fits his retirement lifestyle and offers the satisfaction -- unfamiliar to big-firm litigators -- of solving individual human problems that would otherwise go unsolved, and often doing so relatively quickly.

A. Duncan Whitaker
Whitaker began volunteering with the Archdiocesan Legal Network after assuming senior partner status at Howrey, Simon, Arnold & White. He provides client consultations at the Legal Network on a weekly basis and assists the program’s director in evaluating cases involving complex legal issues. He also serves on the Legal Network’s Advisory Council, which oversees program operations. In 1999 he received the John Carroll Society’s award for outstanding volunteer service to the Legal Network. He has also embarked upon a fine arts career as a photographer.