America's lawyers welcome President-elect Barack Obama's call for a national day of service on Monday - the Martin Luther King Jr. Day national holiday and the day before the inauguration.

Notably, the call to service stresses that this day should be just the start of a long-term, ongoing personal commitment to working to improve communities across the country.

As professionals with a tradition of working on behalf of others, lawyers provide voluntary services that are especially needed in today's troubled economy - services such as formal pro bono representation for disadvantaged clients and support for public or nonprofit organizations.

The legal profession is one of very few that provides an aspirational goal, encouraging each lawyer to perform at least 50 hours of pro bono service every year.

In covering the pro bono commitment by lawyers, American Lawyer Magazine reported in July that lawyers at the 200 highest grossing U.S. law firms performed more than 4.8 million hours of pro bono service. That number represents an increase of 590,000 hours from 2006, nearly 8 percent.

In an ABA study that includes the same time period, nearly three-quarters - or 73 percent - of lawyers reported doing pro bono work.

These figures do not include the personal work in schools, shelters, churches and community organizations where lawyers also are quick to lend a hand.

The National Pro Bono Opportunities Guide, available on the American Bar Association's Web site, provides many avenues for pro bono and law-related public service work across the nation.

While lawyers can take pride in the pro bono and community service work they do, the need is greater than ever before. We need to commit ourselves to improving our neighborhoods, our cities, our towns and our country - on Monday, throughout the rest of 2009 - and beyond.

H. Thomas Wells Jr.

President

American Bar Association