Last night I attended the Stonewall Bar Association's annual dinner at Georgia Tech Conference Center along with 277 other LGBT and gay-friendly attorneys, judges, law students, legal professionals, and service providers. The event honored Dan Grossman, a constitutional law attorney from Atlanta who won a settlement from the city of Atlanta after the Atlanta Police Department conducted an unlawful raid on the Eagle, a popular leather bar in Atlanta, grossly violated the 4th amendment rights of the people in the bar.
During his keynote address, Grossman reminded us that most of us walk around armed at all times -- with our bar cards -- and it is our duty to do good with them. Everyone hopes to get rich, but that's not why most people become lawyers. We become attorneys because we want to serve justice, and to stick up for the underdogs.
In my small practice, I always have at least one pro bono case open at a time (usually two), and I provide dozens of hours of pro bono work each year as a guardian ad litem through the Atlanta Volunteer Lawyers Foundation.
As we reach the end of Celebrate Pro Bono week, I am inspired by Grossman, 2011 award recipient Christine Koehler and by all of the other attorneys out there who routinely work for free to ensure that justice is served.
