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Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility
University of Arkansas at Little Rock William H. Bowen School of Law
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Peter Singer, Drowning Children, And Pro Bono, John M.A. Dipippa
Peter Singer, Drowning Children, And Pro Bono, John M.A. Dipippa
Faculty Scholarship
This Article uses the ethicist Peter Singer's principles to examine and critique the legal profession's pro bono efforts in the face of the persistent gap between the public's legal needs and their ability to meet them. Singer argues that adults should jump into a pond to save a drowning child. Using the drowning child as an analogy, this Article argues that lawyers are morally obligated to (1)increase the amount of their pro bono efforts, (2) be more selective in the cases they take, and (3) be significantly more generous in their financial support for legal services providers. These obligations are …