Today is my last day of Sponsor A Law Kid!! My final sponsor of this adventure is David E. Mills of The Mills Law Office.   His recent claim to fame is being among the few lawyers who have had the privilege of arguing a case before the United States Supreme Court. He obtained a 9-0 decision in Ortiz v. Jordan earlier this year. I love that he’s done so much, and yet he’s still a down-to-earth person who works out of his apartment in Cleveland, Ohio. He asked me to relay the story behind him becoming my final sponsor.
I announced Sponsor A Law Kid on November 16, 2010. The idea came to me somewhat on a whim, and I had no idea if it would work. My friend in the blogging world told me to “put out a blog post and see what happens.â€Â At that time, I had been blogging for less than a year and I was happy to have a few dozen people visit my site a day. It took a few days, but Above the Law and the ABA Journal websites each ran a story about my endeavor and my numbers started to climb rapidly.
And then the comments started. People who didn’t know me and wouldn’t know me from Adam, visited my site and left comments claiming that they were embarrassed for me and that I was lazy, undedicated, and begging for money.   It was hard to approve those mean-spirited comments. I did not expect that level of negative backlash from the legal community.
I had over 3,000 hits in the first 10 days after I announced the program, including David. He saw the post about Sponsor A Law Kid on Above the Law. He thought my idea was interesting, and he was curious to see what people’s reactions were.  David had no intention of buying a day. However, when he visited my site, he was so appalled by the unwarranted insults towards me and was so impressed with the way I calmly responded to them, that he offered to buy my most expensive day.
I’m so grateful for all the support I’ve received for this program. Now that Sponsor A Law Kid is over, we need to find new endeavors to support, like the Legal Aid Society of Cleveland. Cleveland has a very special place in my heart, and this is a fantastic organization that provides a wide variety of legal resources for people who can’t otherwise afford legal representation. It is staffed by wonderful people who work tirelessly for their clients. They embody what the practice of law is supposed to be.
Sponsor A Law Kid was my endeavor to pay for my last semester of law school. Today’s sponsor is David E. Mills. For more information about Sponsor A Law Kid, visit my Sponsor A Law Kid page.