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BigLaw Partner Plumbs God's Plan and Pro Bono's Glamour

New York Lawyer
August 9, 2007

By Rachel Heron
The Legal Intelligencer

Pro bono has a glamorous side, according to Pepper Hamilton partner Eric Rothschild’s send-off speech to participants in the Anti-Defamation League’s Summer Associates Research Program.

Rothschild, who gained prominence as the co-lead plaintiff attorney in the nation’s first intelligent design case, spoke at the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) summer research program’s July 20 concluding breakfast, hosted by Cozen O’Connor.

ADL assistant regional director Nancy Baron-Baer said that it was board member Rothschild’s high-profile public interest work that prompted ADL to select him as its keynote speaker.

“The idea is for the students to understand and see that they can work within the system and still do pro bono,” said Baron-Baer. “They can still contribute to society.”

The approximately 30 summer associates who heard Rothschild speak have spent part of their summer doing civil rights research for the ADL through a partnership with their firms. Nine firms currently provide associates for the Philadelphia branch of the nationally run program: Ballard Spahr Andrews & Ingersoll, Blank Rome, Cozen O’Connor, Drinker Biddle & Reath, Duane Morris, Fox Rothschild, Reed Smith, Saul Ewing and Wolf Block Schorr & Solis-Cohen.

Rothschild told these associates that he was an associate at Pepper Hamilton when he worked on Kitzmiller v. Dover, a civil rights suit backed by the American Civil Liberties Union, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and Pepper Hamilton, in which parents challenged a Dover, Pa., school board’s inclusion of intelligent design in evolution curriculum.

According to Rothschild, working in a major firm did not hamper his ability to take on what would become a news-making case. Rather, he said, Pepper Hamilton “stood by” his and other employees’ work in Kitzmiller v. Dover, even taking a financial hit to do so.

Rothschild said that after winning the trial, plaintiff’s counsel was cleared to recover $2.5 million in fees and expenses. Because the sum was high for a small school district, he said, Pepper Hamilton helped lower the cost by not charging fees.

Most of Rothschild’s speech spotlighted his personal connection to the unfolding drama of the case, which he described as being like a movie.

As he described the reporters that packed the juryless courtroom, he paused to describe Matthew Chapman, the great-great-grandson of Charles Darwin and eventual author of a book on the Kitzmiller trial. According to Rothschild, Chapman responded to the lawyer’s assertion that he felt like he was “touching history” by calling him the “Clarence Darrow of this trial,” alluding to the legendary lawyer from the country’s original creationism-evolution case.

“I coolly went back to my office, closed the door, and called my mom,” Rothschild said, drawing laughter from the assembled associates.

He got more laughs when he described the trial’s end, waiting at his desk for the online release of what would turn out to be the judge’s “grand slam” opinion against teaching intelligent design in public schools.

“I was sitting at a computer and it came up,” Rothschild recalled. “I had to make a decision to yell and tell everyone that it was here, or read ahead by myself. I chose the latter.”

The ADL, which planned the event as an “added benefit” for their researchers, according to Baron-Baer, hoped Rothschild’s remarks would impress pro bono passion on ambitious summer associates. Rothschild himself told associates that public interest cases need them.

“[Public interest firms] don’t have often the number of lawyers and the resources to litigate huge cases by themselves,” Rothschild said, explaining that his own involvement with the non-profit organization National Center for Science Education (NCSE) got him involved with the groundbreaking Kitzmiller case.

Although Rothschild admitted the first few years after sending an e-mail of interest to the NCSE were little more than “an opportunity to do some intellectual noodling about these issues,” his contacts there eventually invited him to work on the case of his dreams.

“I’ve been waiting for this case for the last 15 years!” he recalled telling the NCSE representative who called him. Rothschild also described a strong sense of public spirit to the summer associates, positioning his clients at the center of all the drama he described.

“In a case like this, it’s a cause, it’s an issue, but we had unbelievable clients,” Rothschild said of the Dover-area parents who felt their children’s rights were threatened. “I wanted to jump on the counsel table and cheer,” he said, remembering their testimony.

A year and a half after the judge’s opinion, Rothschild told the ADL summer associates that his enthusiasm for his dramatic pro bono experience has not waned.

“I can and have talked for hours about this case,” he warned them; “People like my wife and kids are tired of it.”

“I still pinch myself that I got the opportunity to be involved in this case,” he said.