Memory stream Dipping into Philadelphia's illustrated past

In the early 20th century, thousands of men and women who were unable to afford lawyers were appearing in the Philadelphia courts with no legal representation. In 1934, a group of lawyers formed the Voluntary Defender Association to provide their services to such defendants pro bono.

Francis Fisher Kane, son of lawyer Robert Patterson Kane and grandson of noted jurist John Kintzing Kane, was one of the instrumental founders of the Voluntary Defender Association. Kane was admitted to the Pennsylvania bar in 1889, and he ran unsuccessfully for mayor of Philadelphia in 1903. He was later appointed the first U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, and he went on to serve as president of the Pennsylvania Prison Society.

Kane brought together several prominent local lawyers, including Curtis Bok and Thomas E. Cogan, to form the Voluntary Defender Association. Kane wanted to maintain the same high level of service its defendants would have gotten from paid lawyers. The association was often successful at winning acquittals and, when defendants were found guilty, obtaining reduced sentences.

The Voluntary Defender Association was funded by its lawyers, a local community chest, and private donations. In 1959, the group changed its name to the Defender Association. Today, the Defender Association of Philadelphia estimates that it represents 70 percent of those arrested in the city.