Vermont Bar Journal, Vol. 40, No. 2 Spring 2014, Vol. 40, No. 1 | Page 37

Sandra Baird

“A strong advocate for the voiceless.”
“An avid humanitarian and community
advocate.”
“Ms. Baird seems to eat, sleep and
breathe pro-bono work … ”
“Her commitment to justice and her tireless efforts on behalf of poor Vermonters is
a true inspiration.”
Those are the words of Judge Susan
Fowler, Sandra McKernan, Jeremy Kasparian, and Angele Court, all nominating attorney Sandra Baird for this year’s VBA Pro
Bono Service Award.
Sandra Baird is the director and staff
attorney for the Burlington Legal Clinic,
which dispenses free legal advice to all who
stop by each Saturday morning. She is also
a full-time professor at Burlington College,
teaching a variety of subjects ranging from
history, law and politics, international relations, family law, and political science. She
supervises the paralegals who work with
her at the Clinic, instilling the pro bono ethic in the next generation. And she has a pro
bono law practice, where the only cases
she takes are referrals from VVLP and the
Clinic. It was this last activity that moved
the Vermont Bar Association to recognize
her with its Pro Bono Service Award.
Baird works for the poor because, in her
words, she “was poor all her life.” She feels
solidarity with them, and finds them easier
to work with than people of means. “I’m
not sure why,” she admits. “The poor clients give you a lot of grief as any client
does, but their concerns are more real in
some ways.”
“I’ve always had a hard time charging for
my time,” Baird acknowledges. Pro bono
work suits her better. She estimates that
she spends fifteen to twenty hours each
week working for free, answering questions
over the phone, taking on cases. Baird considers her work at the clinic a “luxury” because she has a small salary from Burlington College, and without that it would be
hard to do all pro bono work. She is generous in her praise of colleagues who volunteer their time, too. “I think lawyers are
very generous people who do whatever
they can to help clients. They take a pro
bono case that might last for months and
might disrupt their lives.”
Sandra Baird read for the law as a fouryear clerk at Vermont Legal Aid. “I became
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a lawyer because I was too rebellious.” She
knew she could avoid trouble with bosses
by becoming her own—as a lawyer. At Legal Aid, John Dooley was her mentor. “The
best boss I ever had,” said Baird. “If you
were doing your job, he didn’t micromanage. He had trust in his employees.”
Following her admission to the Vermont
bar in 1977, Baird went to work in the Chittenden County prosecutor’s office. “The
state’s attorney has more power than anyone,” she found. “They have the power to
decide the nature of the charge and recommendation for sentences, and they have
an ethical commitment to justice.”
Baird is a community activist. She was
a student in Madison, Wisconsin, in the
1960s and motivated by the Vietnam War.
“I’m vastly anti-war, but not a pacifist,” she
describes herself. And she was active in the
feminist struggles of the 1970s, a founder
of the Women’s Health Center in Burlington, one of the first abortion clinics in the
country. Just last year, her community activism led her to sue the City of Burlington
to challenge the constitutionality of a notrespass ordinance. That lawsuit survived a
challenge to remove John Franco as her attorney, and is now set for a merits hearing
later this spring.
Calling herself a lifelong Democrat, Baird
admits to being more interested in issues
than in candidates. She successfully sued
the City of Burlington to prevent it from
giving away the waterfront to the YMCA,
and she thwarted Bernie Sander’s attempt
to turn the waterfront into a prime hotel location. Working with a citizens group, she
led efforts to repeal the city’s instant runoff voting. As a Green candidate, Baird also
ran for Mayor of Burlington against Peter
Clavelle.
“I really wanted to be in office,” Baird
said, and she won a seat in the Vermont
House of Representatives, serving two
terms from 1992 to 1996. During that time,
she supported legislation to strengthen
penalties for those who fail to pay child
support, and pushed for adoption reform. She also opposed efforts to outlaw
flag burning, seeing it as a threat to First
Amendment rights.
Baird is thoughtful about the future of
the legal profession. She sees an expanded
role for lawyers as legal coache ̰