Pro Bono Lawyer Jameika Williams Saves Homeless Man from Jail

December 28th, 2010. By BrendaC

LawyersandSettlements.com has a new column that looks at a side of lawyers you don’t hear too much about—the side that gives back…pays it forward..and shares the love. We’ve found quite a number of attorneys who log non-billable hours helping others—simply because they believe it’s the right thing to do. Their stories are inspiring, and hey, who knew lawyers were so…good? If you’ve got a story to share about an attorney who’s doing the right thing, let us know—we’d love to let others know, too. Today, we talk with Attorney Jameika Williams Mangum of The Mangum Law Firm in Chicago… 

Attorney Jameika Williams: “You don’t have to do pro bono work—but I think pro bono is extremely important.”

It might sound like a small case, but in David Liberty’s world, the stakes were high. The 51-year-old homeless man was accused of assaulting another homeless man, and without a lawyer to defend him, he would likely do 30 days in the notorious Cook County Jail.  

Attorney Jameika Williams Magnum

“He asked me if I had ever been in the Cook County jail,” says young attorney Jameika Williams Mangum. “I told I had not and he said ‘well, you don’t want to go there, because I have been there before and it isn’t a place you want to be`.”

The center of Liberty’s world was his truck. He did odd jobs and worked as a painter sometimes. If he went to jail, he would almost certainly lose the truck and everything in it.

“He was very worried about that—he wanted to know what would happen to his truck,” says Mangum.

So you see, to David Liberty, this case was huge.

Chicago lawyers are expected to work out a deal with clients who have a limited ability to pay, but Mangum knew from the beginning that this was definitely a pro bono case—even if it meant hours of preparation and going to trial, she had no intention of sending him a bill.

Mangum runs a general law practice, and Liberty is definitely not any lawyer’s dream client. “You can`t call him on the telephone, or send him a letter in the mail because he basically lives on the street,” says Mangum. “All our meetings took place at the courthouse and I would write notes down for him.”

And although justice is supposed to be blind, the reality is appearance counts when you go before a judge or jury.

“I immediately let the court know this man cannot afford to buy a suit and tie,” says Mangum.

“He would come to court and he had not changed his clothes in weeks,” says Mangum. “So I explained the situation to the prosecutor and asked him to let the judge and everyone else know why he looked the way he did.”

In the end, Liberty’s charge was negotiated down to disorderly conduct. No jail time, and no fine.

“You don’t have to do pro bono work—but I think pro bono is extremely important and I am involved in another right now,” says Mangum. “In these economic times, people can not always afford to pay a lawyer $300, $400 or $500 an hour. They have real issues and real problems and there are not very many places where they can get help.”

“It is unfortunate that people with limited means end up serving jail time for a crime they didn’t commit or serve time when it could have been avoided if they had proper representation,” she says. 

 Jamieka Williams Mangum is a native of Los Angeles who recently opened a law office in Chicago and is proving herself to be a force to be reckoned with. She recently won an eyebrow-raising not guilty verdict for a man accused of knowingly bringing a gun on board an aircraft. Mangum argued he had simply forgotten it in his bag.

Tags: Chicago lawyers, cook county jail, homeless, Jameika Williams Mangum, Lawyers Giving Back, Pro Bono, The Mangum Law Firm

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