Law firm honored for public service

BANGOR – Maine attorneys each year volunteer thousands of hours of free legal work for the same reason the state’s residents have headed to the Gulf Coast to aid in the hurricane Katrina recovery efforts.

That is how Norman Trask of the Presque Isle law firm Currier & Trask explained his firm’s donation of legal services in 51 civil cases since 1998 and its amassing 167 volunteer hours in 41 of those cases.

The Maine Volunteer Lawyers Project on Thursday recognized the Presque Isle firm with the Lew Vafiades Pro Bono award at a reception at the Lucerne Inn.

“I know on a personal level, I feel fortunate that we have a successful practice,” Trask, 42, said earlier this week. “I like the fact that we can give something back to people who are less fortunate than we are and have very real needs.

“It’s good to be able to help other people,” he continued. “We do it for the same reason that people have gone to help all those folks down south who have been so affected by Katrina.”

Currier & Trask, which in addition to Norman Trask includes his brother Anthony Trask, 42, and Richard Currier, 50, has handled many bankruptcy cases in Aroostook County on a volunteer basis, Richardson said Thursday. They also have handled property disputes and divorces.

Thomas F. Shehan Jr., 46, of Belfast was given the VLP’s single practitioner award. Shehan has taken 32 cases and volunteered 107 hours on 14 of those cases since 2001.

“I like doing this stuff,” Shehan said recently. “I just think if you can help somebody and it’s in your power to do it, you should do it. I live in a poor county. Most folks don’t have anything and are not wise to the system.”

Much of Shehan’s work as a volunteer by choice has been in the area of family law, and his cases often include instances of domestic violence.

“It’s almost all family law, either divorces or parental rights and responsibility cases,” he said recently. “I do a lot of criminal work. That’s how I make my living. I do a lot of domestic violence criminal work and in some ways, doing volunteer cases is giving back to the other half.”

The VLP last year created the award and named it after Vafiades as part of its 20th anniversary celebration. Vafiades was a well-known Bangor attorney who died in 2001 at the age of 81.

The organization provides assistance regarding civil legal matters to people at or below 125 percent of the federal poverty level.

Over the past two decades, the VLP and the attorney volunteers who work with it have assisted more than 165,000 callers and provided free representation to more than 25,000 clients, according to director Mary Richardson.

While defendants charged in criminal matters are entitled to have attorneys appointed by a judge to represent them if they cannot afford to hire them, litigants in civil legal matters are not.

That is one of the reasons volunteer attorneys take cases that range from family to consumer to employment law, to benefits and income maintenance.

Lawyers are not required by the rules that govern their profession to volunteer their services, but pro bono work is a deeply rooted professional tradition.

Maine attorneys who work with the organization are generous with their time, taking on between 10 and 15 percent of their cases pro bono, or without compensation, according to Richardson.