I started working at AVLF about three years ago. Five days into my employment, I was standing on the 16th floor of King & Spalding, watching in bewilderment as two people deftly constructed a 10-foot stiletto shoe out of hundreds of red balloons.

More often than I wish were true, people think of “pro bono legal services” as simply giving a poor person a free lawyer. But pro bono publico (usually shortened to pro bono) does not mean “free,” it means “for the public good.”