Subject: New Jersey Law Firm Uses Its Clout To Back Unique Pro Bono Program 
Date: Published: 11/29/90 (86 lines)
Source: Wall Street Journal. Copyright Dow Jones & Co. Inc.

    Giving a Hand:
    New Jersey Law Firm Uses Its Clout
    To Back Unique Pro Bono Program
    ----
    By John A. Conway

    {From time to time in this column, The Wall Street Journal
 will report on efforts by people in business to help others
 in need.}
    STEPHEN VINCENT BENET ENSHRINED Daniel Webster as the
 ultimate pro bono lawyer when he had the great orator descend
 into hell to save a New England farmer's soul from Satan.  Pro
 bono help for poor clients is as old as lawyering, but a New
 Jersey firm has added a new twist.  Its 34 partners have
 committed $1 million to fund the first five years of a
 nonprofit program that puts the firm's clout behind a variety
 of public service issues.
    The idea came from partner Michael Griffinger of Newark's
 Crummy, Del Deo, Dolan, Griffinger & Vecchione.  In recent
 years, he had watched a steady cutback in funds for public
 defenders at both federal and state levels, combined with
 what he terms "a falling-off in law-firm pro bono work."  By
 coincidence, a man to implement the Griffinger plan became
 available this year when John J. Gibbons, chief judge of the
 U. S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, decided to
 retire.  A founding partner of the Newark firm before his 20
 years on the federal bench, Mr. Gibbons agreed to rejoin
 Crummy Del Deo as special counsel to supervise the new
 program.  He will split his time between the firm's office and
 his professor's chair at Seton Hall University.
    "We've done pro bono work by court appointment for years
 and we will still do so," says David Sheehan, the firm's
 managing partner.  "This new plan will let us put power behind
 public service interests and get the public behind public
 service issues."
    The first John J. Gibbons Fellow is already in place at
 Crummy Del Deo.  He is Lawrence Lustberg, a 34-year-old
 Harvard Law graduate and for five years a federal public
 defender.  His salary, $60,000 a year, is modest for a
 big-city law firm but princely by public defender standards.
 Next year, Crummy Del Deo will pick a second fellow, to
 ensure an overlap during their two-year terms.  The fellows
 will also be offered berths at the firm as associates when
 they finish their stints.
    A new committee headed by Mr. Gibbons will counsel Mr. 
 Lustberg on the public issues he will pursue.  Mr. Lustberg
 will also have full access to all of the firm's services and
 its 112 lawyers, who will give him whatever specialized legal
 help he thinks he needs.
    The work has already begun.  Mr. Lustberg has used the
 firm's good offices -- "just a couple of phone calls" -- to
 help win housing for low-income Newark residents.  He is
 acting as co-counsel with a Seton Hall legal aid group to
 improve conditions in a prison near Newark Airport.  Backing
 up the Consumer League of New Jersey, Mr. Lustberg has
 intervened in a case involving alleged overcharging in
 so-called rent-to-own deals.  And working with the state's
 association of criminal lawyers, he is appealing to Mr. 
 Gibbons's old Third Circuit over whether illegally seized
 evidence can be used in deciding sentences.
    The future pro bono docket is building.  Mr. Lustberg is
 consulting with physicians over a case that would provide
 hospice care for thousands of AIDS patients currently in
 hospitals (at costs of as much as $1,000 a day) or on the
 street.  He is planning action to determine whether juvenile
 prisoners are getting adequate education, and he wants to
 join the American Civil Liberties Union in a case challenging
 the validity of a sweeping law against "loitering and
 cruising" directed primarily at teen-agers.
    Mr. Griffinger thinks this pro bono plan is unique because
 "it has the back-up clout of a big law firm ...and we can
 make  a difference."  Unlike the public defender, who must
 take the cases he gets, "we can be selective and look for
 issues with broad reach and application."  Mr. Gibbons says he
 feels that Mr. Lustberg is "the happiest lawyer in New Jersey
 because he can wake up, look around and say:  Here is a wrong
 to be righted and I have the power to do it."

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