'Even if I couldn't change the world...'

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Meet Fred Rooney. He's an Understandably.com subscriber, a lawyer, a Fulbright Scholar, and — well, let's let him tell his story.

By Fred Rooney (as told to Bill Murphy Jr.)

I was a social worker beginning in 1975, and then became a member of the first graduating class at CUNY Law School in 1986. Then, I returned to Pennsylvania, to the Lehigh Valley, and worked as a lawyer for Legal Services.

My son was born in my last year of law school and my daughter was born 16 months later. The irony was that my family income was so low at Legal Services that if I’d gone in as a client, we would have qualified under the federal poverty guidelines. It was a hardship for me and my family. 

So, I started a law practice in Allentown with a friend, Michele Varricchio. Because law school didn't teach us how to run a law practice — a business — we had to learn through the school of hard knocks. I wouldn't wish that experience on my worst enemy. 

But, we were lucky enough to have people in the legal community to guide us and mentor us. 

We always had clients, but they often couldn’t afford to pay. Still, pro bono is good karma. Every time I reduced or waived my fees, the blessing came back to me, triplefold. 

Somebody would, say, get hit by a car and they’d ask around the neighborhood, “What lawyer do we go to?” 

“Well, there's this guy, Fred Rooney…”

I carved out areas of practice like Social Security Disability, to some extent Workers' Compensation. I did lots of family law, bankruptcy and consumer issues and landlord/tenant issues. Most of my clients were people who had everyday problems and they needed someone to turn to who wasn't going to make them remortgage their lives to retain me.

We also realized that to do good in our community, we had to do well. I was eventually able to buy my first car and go on vacation and provide for my family. 

We proved that you could have a very satisfying law practice and feel like you were making a contribution to society — by enabling people of limited income to claim a right, or undo a wrong.

In 1998, I returned to CUNY Law to teach law grads to develop their business and professional skills so they could set up shop in underserved parts of NYC. In 2007, we started a pilot incubator project for nine lawyers called the Incubator for Justice. 

Prior to that, I had no idea of what a business incubator was, but I looked around and found incubators for bakers and graphic designers. Why not lawyers?

The New York Times wrote about it in 2008. The next thing, my phone was ringing off the wall. By 2009, law schools across the country, and then bar associations, wanted to develop incubators. 

The movement took off. It was a win-win for everyone since law grads created their own practices, clients secured affordable and competent representation, and law school employment stats rose. 

Today there approximately 70 incubators that have spun off the CUNY model, which is almost hard for me to fathom.

Given my lifelong interest in travel, I applied for a Fulbright Scholar grant to see if CUNY’s incubator model could be replicated internationally. I went to the Dominican Republic and created the first legal incubator outside of the U.S. 

Then I became a Fulbright Specialist, traveling back and forth to Islamabad, Pakistan, working on incubator development. 

Over the last decade, I’ve travelled all over the world to promote the incubator model. I’ve worked to help law grads who have a deep commitment to social justice create practices focused on providing representation to women, and to marginalized and vulnerable groups. 

In 2017, I began working with Roma communities in Spain and the Balkans. Historically, Roma communities throughout Europe lag far beyond in access to health, education,employment and justice. In a country like Spain, where there are approximately a million Roma people, the number of Roma lawyers is negligible. In Bulgaria, where we recently launched an incubator, the numbers are shockingly low. 

Prior to Covid, I generally flew around 125,000 miles a year. I came back from Spain and Morocco the second week of February, and I was scheduled to see my son in Portland, Oregon the following week. 

That never happened. I’m now in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, landlocked like everyone else (for the first time in decades), unable to complete my Fulbright in Bulgaria, and I’ve postponed trips to countries like Argentina, Romania, Albania and Qatar.

I'm 67. Life goes by quickly. I remember when I was 18, I used to think I could change the world, right? 

But I realized that even if I couldn't change the world, I should use my time on the planet to try to impact in a very positive way as many people as possible. Hopefully, I still have a lot of traction left, since I’m ready, willing and able to go. 

I'm just waiting for the flights to be safe and travel affordable so I can get back “on the road again.”

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