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© St. Petersburg Times, published March 14, 2002
It's no fun being my friend or relative. For starters, people will judge you guilty by association. That is especially true of politicians and bureaucrats.
Also, being close to me significantly increases your risk of collateral damage from hurled fruit and vegetables, and to have your name creatively combined with vivid verbs and demonstrative nouns that this newspaper usually won't print.
But another reason is that if you're my friend or relative, odds are you'll never read your name in this column unless you're dead or dying, or I'm desperate for an idea.
As proof, I can can count on two hands the number of times in the past decade that I've used this space to praise a friend or relative. At times, that has meant passing up the opportunity to write about people who are making remarkable contributions in our community, and who are truly deserving of the recognition.
That said, today I will bend my self-censoring rule to say a few words about my friend John Michael Keller.
Keller is an attorney who practices in Brooksville. He hangs his shingle outside an unassuming little wood frame house on N Broad Street, a stone's throw from the county courthouse. If you passed him on the sidewalk, you might not guess he's an attorney, much less a very special one.
But in a ceremony today in Tallahassee, the state Supreme Court justices and the Florida Bar will honor Keller for making a habit of helping others.
Keller has been selected to receive the 2002 Florida Bar President's Pro Bono Service Award for the 5th Judicial Circuit, which includes Hernando, Citrus, Marion, Sumter and Lake counties. Nineteen other attorneys, one each from the other judicial circuits in Florida, will join Keller as they are honored for giving so freely of their time to help low-income residents.
And "freely" is precisely the word to describe the belief Keller and his fellow recipients have embraced.
Keller specializes in family law, which includes child custody and support, visitation, and divorce. His customary rate is $150 an hour. That's a reasonable fee for his profession, but it's far out of the reach of many people who need a lawyer.
Many of those people fall below federal income poverty levels and qualify to seek help from Withlacoochee Area Legal Services, a program funded mostly by state and federal grants with offices in Brooksville, Inverness and Ocala.
But WALS also relies on the generosity of Florida Bar members, who are instructed by the Florida Rule of Professional Conduct 4-6.1 to donate a minimum of 20 hours of pro bono service each year to the poor. Most Bar members meet that goal. Too many do not.
Keller logged considerably more hours than most of the almost 900 lawyers in the 5th Judicial Circuit.
According to Joy Inzitari, who coordinates the Pro Bono Project for the 5th Circuit, Keller recorded at least 100 hours of pro bono work last year. At $150 an hour, that's a minimum of $15,000 of free legal advice last year, and about $225,000 for the 1,500 hours he has amassed during the past 15 years. And that doesn't even include work he may have done at reduced rates after an initial consultation.
The Pro Bono Project sponsors a monthly "divorce clinic," where people can receive guidance on how to handle the dissolution of their marriage. In addition, it conducts a weekly clinic where people who have sought help through the WALS hotline can meet with a lawyer at the county courthouse. Other lawyers voluntarily participate in these events, but Keller is "the pillar that holds up the program," according to Inzitari.
"John is always available and he always says yes," she said. Every small contribution from attorneys adds up to a successful program, Inzitari said, but there are a few (lawyers in the 5th Judicial Circuit) who are stars. John's one of those."
Hernando County Clerk of the Court Karen Nicolai echoed that sentiment.
"I can't say enough about John Keller. He's fantastic. Sometimes we get someone (in the clerk's office) who is at the end of their rope, and we can always call on John and depend on him to spend the time. He'll talk to anyone who needs help. "John really means a lot to these people. He changes their lives," said Nicolai. The biggest challenge for Nicolai and her staff is "to not take advantage of his good nature. Everyone in the courthouse knows him because he's so helpful and so nice."
Keller, a Florida native, is modest by nature, but even more so when it comes to being honored for the valuable community service he provides. "Don't make me out to be something special," he implored me. "I put in a few hours a week, but it's not totally self-sacrificing. Most people want to pay, but many just can't temporarily. When they get back on their feet (financially), they generate more business. It works out for everybody."
But the real motivator for Keller is more fundamental. Keller, a 48-year-old Vietnam-era Navy veteran, lives by one of his father's favorite sayings. "What goes around comes around."
Indeed, and at today's audience with the Supreme Court, Keller will get a small measure of what's coming to him for unselfishly practicing law, as the Latin term pro bono publico teaches, "for the public good."