There’s a story about a grandfather who watches his grandson pick up starfish one by one, after a storm washed them ashore by the thousands. As the boy throws a starfish back into the ocean, his grandfather tells him that his effort won’t make much of a difference. The boy replies, “It made a difference to this one!”
This story offers a useful metaphor for pro bono lawyering. Both the boy and his grandfather are correct. It’s critical to provide free legal aid to individuals who need it, but we should also consider the scale of our efforts. Technology, including Chat GPT and Bard, can help us on that journey.
For 12 years as a legal aid attorney at Greater Boston Legal Services, I helped tenants, one at a time, who were losing their homes to eviction. During my legal aid career, I helped almost a thousand tenants this way, arguing cases in front of judges, filing forms, or reaching a settlement.
That one-on-one work was meaningful. For those I was helping—the veteran with a traumatic brain injury who got to stay in a safe and familiar home, a young mother whose family didn’t have to move—it didn’t matter that only one in 10 tenants in the Boston Housing Court had an attorney.
Despite the overwhelming scope of the problem, I was able to make...
US President Donald Trump made a series of inaccurate or exaggerated claims during his speech at the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday, although he largely stuck to a prepared script. Fro...