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Good Works and Bad Paper

New York Lawyer
February 14, 2008

By the Staff of New Jersey Law Journal

METUCHEN, N.J. -- Solo Henry Gurshman has devised a tongue-in-cheek economic formula that firms big and small can use to evaluate their pro bono programs. He says "intentional" pro bono should equal "inadvertent" pro bono: work for billable clients who don't pay.

So far, 2008 has been a good year for him. Like a lot of lawyer groups, the Middlesex County Bar Association bestows a Pro Bono Lawyer of the Year award, and Gurshman is this year's winner.

For more than 20 years he has represented bankruptcy clients for Central New Jersey Legal Services and has taken two cases this year already, says agency director Paul Mullin.

Thousands of lawyers donate legal services, and Gurshman speaks for many of them when he says, "That's why I started practicing law: To help people."

Giving free service is a family tradition. He says his father was a doctor and accepted food - even live poultry - from patients who couldn't afford to pay. No client has given Gurshman the lawyer a chicken, dead or alive, but he does get thanked.

"I see people who have been victimized, sometimes by their own stupidity," he says. "They don't really understand what they're doing and all of a sudden they are up to their necks in trouble."