by Richard Prior
Staff Writer
The television series was on the order of career training for Sarah Fowler.
Week after week, the most famous detective in the country was on the trail of the bad guy. He didn’t waste much time checking out his client’s alibi since he, or she, was never the bad guy. Never.
His pointed cross-examinations eventually would reduce the blustering police lieutenant to a stammering buffoon.
By the end of each episode, the district attorney had been so adroitly outflanked that the audience was forced to conclude he wouldn’t have known a tort from a tart.
More often than not, the moment of truth came with the real villain leaping up from the gallery with a shriek of, “I did it, and I’m glad I did!”
“I wanted something special,” said Fowler. “I always figured I’d be the black female Perry Mason. This is the closest I’ve come to being a lawyer, but it’s not too far off.”
Fowler, a paralegal, is director of the Public Service Project for Jacksonville Area Legal Aid. Her job is to review cases that are brought to her attention and refer them to the appropriate pro bono lawyer.
“There are a lot of people doing pro bono in this community, and it all comes through this office,” said Michael Figgins, JALA’s executive director. “It starts here, it goes out from here, and it eventually comes back here.”
Fowler recently was presented a plaque for her 25 years of service to Legal Aid.
Over that time, she has noticed that fewer attorneys are donating their time to pro bono work.
“There’s sort of been a drop, for one reason or another,” said Fowler. “A lot of them are doing other things, maybe.
“We just like to have more of an appearance in the community to let them know we’re here, that I’m here, I’m with JALA, and we’re still offering the services.”
Fowler had worked for the sheriff’s department for two years. She completed the year-long course offered by Jacksonville University’s American Paralegal Institute, which was “the only game around” before FCCJ was established.
“I started out as a secretary and moved up to paralegal and then this,” she said. “And I’m still here.”
With the number of pro bono attorneys not keeping up with the growing volume of requests for help, Fowler’s role is invaluable, Figgins said.
‘“We’re limited to what we can do here in-house,” he said. “With Sarah here as the conduit, we can tap into the private bar to do things we can’t get to, to do things we never will get to do, and to be places where we can’t be.
“It’s a big adjunct to the services we provide to the community. Again, it’s all free. And there are not a lot of professions that do that.”
Clients often bring Fowler their problems, which usually involve family law or probate. She also gets cases from JALA staff attorneys working in various units. The Public Service Project devotes some of its outreach efforts to the Sulzbacher Center and also gets referrals from the City Rescue Mission through Christian Legal Society attorneys.
About 600 area attorneys have included their names on the pro bono panel; Figgins would like to see that number rise to around 1,500. The next recruitment effort will be a mass mailing that will soon be going out to all attorneys in the 4th Judicial Circuit.
“There are so many ways people can do pro bono,” Figgins said. “It’s not just the horror stories. People think they’re going to get some difficult ugly custody dispute.
“It can be that. It can also be simple wills . . . transactional work. It can be intake. Sarah has something for everyone.”
Contrary to the way the legal system generally works, “We try to match attorneys to things they can do; to things they want to do,” he added. “There is, literally, something for everyone.
“We do not have the luxury, for example, that the federal court has. They’ll refer you a case that’s totally foreign to what you do, foreign to what you ever want to do. But they figure, even if you don’t know what’s going on, whatever you do is probably better than what the clients would do on their own.”
Many local judges and attorneys have worked with Sarah Fowler over the years as they volunteered their pro bono time. Figgins hopes that a good number of them who receive the mass mailing will contact JALA to donate their time. Their example may also inspire new converts.
“We hope they’ll respond positively when they receive the letter from Sarah in the next couple of weeks,” said Figgins. “Certainly there’s enough here for everyone. And we certainly do still need them to help us meet the needs of the poor in this community.”