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When I was growing up, we had a cat named Herman. Herman slept with me every night for as far back as I can remember. He fell ill with some cat disease that would require a lot of money and time at the animal hospital to cure, and there was no guarantee the treatment would work. While we weren’t poor, my parents were trying to raise three kids and spending that much money on Herman wasn’t in the budget.* They made the decision to put Herman to sleep. We said our goodbyes and my mother took him to the vet.
Time went by and, one afternoon, my mother got a phone call from the vet. He told her we could come get Herman, he was all well now. My poor mother didn’t know what was going on, and the vet explained that he knew how much we loved Herman so he had treated him for free. To this day, what that vet did still brings tears to my eyes. **
I have to admit I didn’t go to law school so I could “help people”. Mostly, I just thought being a lawyer would be a good job and the pay would be decent. When I was in law school, I belonged to some organizations that provided pro bono legal services, and I thought I would always be doing some pro bono work for the rest of my career. It’s what I was trained to do, so why wouldn’t I want to help people if I could?
I haven’t done any pro bono work since I passed the bar. I can’t do it during the day because I have to work on my cases and get my “billable” hours in. At the end of a ten hour day, I am tired and hungry and just want to change into shorts and a tee and eat dinner while watching some mindless reality show on television (mindless as in Big Brother, not Project Runway or Top Chef). That’s when we are not preparing for trial; at the end of a 16 hour day, I start stripping when I hit the front door and just fall into bed.
I hate to say it, but I don’t know when, or if, I will ever get to do any pro bono work. I’m just too damn tired.
*How things have changed. They spent $$$$$ on knee surgery for their current dog. My mother slept on an Aero bed on the floor for weeks after the surgery because the dog couldn’t jump on or off a regular bed.
**I have a lot of questions about that incident, but they will remain unasked. Knowing my father, I'm sure he must have told my mother to pay the vet when she picked up Herman.
Can you tell I’m still in work mode? Two footnotes on my BLOG post!