“The world doesn’t owe you anything,” says Don Robinson. “It’s that sense of entitlement that seems to be getting all these young kids in trouble these days.”
Robinson, Jacksonville Area Legal Aid’s Pro Bono Attorney of the Month for November, thinks a lot about today’s youth. From the hundreds of kids he’s helped through pro bono temporary relative custody cases to the many football players that take to the field every fall Friday night for his beloved Jackson High School Tigers.
He sees the devastation that drugs have had on the kids in his old Florida Avenue neighborhood. He sees the crime and the violence. Mostly, though, he sees so much wasted opportunity.
“Yeah, I grew up on Florida Avenue. It’s A. Phillip Randolph now, but we still call it Florida Avenue. I don’t live there anymore,” he says with a slight chuckle. “These young guys, they’re pretty violent. And they don’t care where you grew up.”
It’s all very personal to Robinson.
Robinson’s mother died when he was 10, and he and his five brothers and sisters were fortunate enough to be taken in by his grandmother and other family members. He suffered a severely broken leg during high school that kept him from playing the sport that he loves: football. Still, despite the poverty and poor luck, Robinson knows he’s been very fortunate.
“Don Robinson is just a humble guy that remembers where he came from and who tries to do his small part to reach back and help the less fortunate. Because I grew up as a less fortunate and I feel I was blessed,” says Robinson.
After graduating high school, Robinson hocked his future for a chance to go to college at Florida A&M. His work there earned him a tuition waiver to attend Florida State University Law School.
“It was hard work,” he says. “Nothing was given to me. That’s what I try to impress upon these young guys. The world doesn’t owe you anything. You may have some bad breaks along the way, but with hard work and determination, you can beat it - poverty, racism, all of that. You can do it. I try to tell them: ‘Don’t fall for the excuses, or people telling you why you can’t or why you won’t.’”
Three of the keys to Robinson’s success were his mother, reading, and the landmark legal decision of Brown v. Board of Education.
“I was lucky,” he says. “I always liked to read. My mother died when I was real young, but we were real close and she used to read a lot. And she used to get me books. In reading I thought there was a world better than the one I was growing up in. My favorite item growing up was my library card. You could go in there and just lose yourself. But you also obtained knowledge along the way. Reading is the key.”
Robinson spent a lot of time in the old Haydon Burns library and the “little small one on the Eastside on Harrison Street near Matthew Gilbert School.”
In ninth grade, Robinson read something that would ultimately prove to change his life. It was the story of Linda Brown, a little third-grade girl in Kansas who wanted to go to school with the rest of her friends but wasn’t allowed to because of the color of her skin. And it was a story of the people who fought for her right to go to that school. Those people were lawyers.
“I saw how that really changed society,” Robinson says. “And I saw how it was lawyers who did that. That’s what turned me onto this. … So I thought, ‘Well, I’ll go to college and see what happens.’”
What happened is that Robinson has been practicing law now for 25 years and has been one of Jacksonville Area Legal Aid’s most active pro bono attorneys. And while he hasn’t been fortunate enough to change the world with a major landmark court decision, he feels he’s been able to make a little difference here and there.
“Sometimes, when the grandmothers come to court to get temporary relative custody of their grand kids, they’ll bring the kids along. And sometimes I get a chance to talk to them and try to tell them that they can do anything they want to with their lives. And you actually get to feel that you might be making a difference in a kid’s life.”
“And those kids,” says Pro Bono JALA Manager, Sarah Fowler, “are getting to see, in flesh and blood, what great things are possible for them. Don Robinson is a shining example of someone who, through hard work and perseverance, overcame tremendous odds to not only make something of himself, but to make himself into someone who could come back and make a major difference in the lives of so many people. He is an amazing role model for all of us, not just kids.”
Requests for civil legal assistance from the Fourth Circuit’s low-income families have never been greater. Attorneys are needed in all areas of civil law for pro bono representation. Contact Kathy Para, Chairperson, JBA Pro Bono Committee, for information on areas of greatest need, volunteer opportunities, and support for pro bono attorneys at [email protected] or 356-8371, ext. 363.
Don Robinson has helped ensure stability in the lives of hundreds of Jacksonville’s children with his pro bono assistance in temporary relative custody cases.