Retired, top lawyers back in court

Bancroft R. Wheeler, 73, is a lawyer at an esteemed Boston corporate law firm. Elba Vazquez, 49, lives in Roxbury, is unemployed, and relies on disability payments for income.

It is fair to say that in the normal course of life, their paths would not have crossed.

But last week they stood side by side in a Suffolk County courtroom as Wheeler, of Nutter McClennen & Fish, helped Vazquez, a Puerto Rico native, win guardianship of her 9-year-old grandson. No hefty legal bill awaited Vazquez at the end of the day; Wheeler represented her free of charge, courtesy of Senior Partners for Justice, which pairs retired and active lawyers with low-income clients who otherwise would have fended for themselves in court.

"This is helping a lot of poor people who cannot really afford lawyers today," said Vazquez, whose grandson's parents are unable to care for him. "I wish they could have a lot more lawyers like him."

Run in Probate and Family Court by the Volunteer Lawyers Project of the Boston Bar Association, the project gives white-shoe law firm firepower to impoverished litigants who frequently find the legal system confusing and inaccessible. But it has another, less obvious benefit: It taps the experience of numerous senior citizen lawyers who, like Wheeler, are winding down their practices after lengthy careers.

Many of these senior partners have spent their professional lives working exclusively for well-heeled corporate clients and have reaped substantial riches. But with big law firms often requiring lawyers to retire as young as their early 60s, many lawyers who consider themselves in the prime of their careers are forced out even though their interest in the law hasn't faded.

"The firms want them out, but they're really not old enough to just go play golf all the time," said Edward M. Ginsburg, a former Boston probate court judge who founded the program after retiring from the bench. "So I thought one of the great sources for this program would be people who are transitioning out of these large law firms, and for a lot of them I thought it could rekindle their ideals."

For retired lawyers, the program provides a sense of camaraderie and community that they often lose when they leave practice. And the legal issues they confront can be challenging for accomplished lawyers who suddenly find themselves in unfamiliar professional territory.

"Some of our lawyers spent their careers doing litigation but never handled a family law case -- so they love the idea of doing something new, but it can also be scary and ego-wounding," said Mary M. Connolly, executive director of the Volunteer Lawyers Project.

"A lot of people find that very daunting," she said.

Added Ginsburg: "I remember one person saying, 'I'm ready to take a case, but I'm going to Florida so I'll do it when I get back next month.' And then it was, 'Well, next month,' and then the month after that. And then it dawned on me: He was just apprehensive. But the fascinating thing is that those who were able to do it have been absolutely thrilled."

The program began Oct. 14, 2002, a date Ginsburg remembers well; that was the day after he turned 70, mandatory retirement age for Massachusetts judges, and found himself out of work. Still physically and mentally vigorous, he knew that coasting leisurely through his twilight years was not for him. He recalled , "The day I transitioned out from being a judge, I thought, 'You've got to keep going on; it's important.' "

He also believes it is a profoundly bad idea for low-income litigants to represent themselves in court.

"If you go to court without a lawyer, it's like going into the hospital and saying: 'Don't bother to give me a doctor. Just give me an operating room, a manual, and the utensils, and I'll do my open-heart surgery myself,' " he said.

The Senior Partners for Justice volunteers are not all retirees. Numbering about 350, they range from their late 20s to their late 80s, and their tasks include handling complaints for divorce, paternity, custody, and child support; counseling clients on matters such as visitation and domestic abuse ; negotiating separation agreements; divvying up marital assets; and trying cases in court.

Since joining the program, Wheeler, who lives in South Natick and is "of counsel" at Nutter McClennen & Fish, has handled four cases for clients from walks of life very different from his own; one is a Dorchester woman facing mortgage troubles, another became administrator of the estate of her son's father after the man was killed in a drive-by shooting.

"None of these people could afford to be clients of my firm, and therefore I never would have had anything to do with any of them. But these are good people who just find themselves in unfortunate circumstances," Wheeler said.

"At my age I'm not as busy as I used to be, so I do have some time now, and I've enjoyed this," he added.

Boston lawyer Samuel Adams, 81, who is "of counsel" at Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Nicholson Graham, has handled two cases for the program involving custody and child support. He did similar work as a younger lawyer, "but the law has changed a lot since then, and even I have to rely on my associates now to read all the new rules and new provisions, so it's a challenge . . . and it's a new world of clients."

"As I advance in age, I don't bring in a lot of business anymore," added Adams, a former Superior Court judge. "But I can do this for the firm, and I feel that I'm helping them in that respect, and I've enjoyed having something to keep me going."

Sacha Pfeiffer can be reached at pfeiffer@globe.com.