We at LPR are always looking for inspiring stories to spur legal reform.  This holiday season, we stumbled on the story of a law firm that started a holiday program to encourage others to do good deeds and pay it forward.  On December 18, 2013, Fayobserver.com reported about a local law firm’s holiday program: Fayetteville Law Firm Spurs ‘Pay It Forward’ Deeds All Over City.

Poinsettas (Photo credit: David Noah1)

According to the article, the Hutchens Law Firm of North Carolina distributes cards to the public as part of its “High Performance Giving” campaign.  The card recipient is prompted to do a good deed for someone and pass the card to them.  That person is asked to do a good deed for someone else and pass the card to them, and so on.  Each person who does a good deed and posts it on the firm’s campaign website, Highperformancegiving.com, is eligible for a weekly $100 gift card from the firm.  According to the firm’s marketing director, the firm wanted to expand its charitable giving program in a way that would allow the public to do good deeds even if they couldn’t afford to give financially:

Not a lot of people are doing good deeds for others, especially in this giving season.  It should be put out there more that it’s okay to do good deeds for others and that it doesn’t have to cost you money.

The website lists many good deeds by card recipients, from paying for someone’s coffee, to giving a homeless person breakfast, to getting tested to be a kidney donor for a 9-year-old girl.  The website is full of kind acts big and small.

While the possibility of a reward or recognition should not be the reason one does a good deed and the program could merely be a marketing endeavor, LPR applauds the firm for thinking up and instituting the program.  Hopefully other firms will take note and begin to think of ways to pay it forward to their clients and to the public.

LPR will be closed starting December 23 and will reopen January 6, 2014.  We at LPR wish everyone a holiday season filled with joy and a dispute-free New Year.

Related articles

• Hutchens Law Firm Spurs ‘Pay it Forward’ Giving Campaign (larrybodine.com)
• Reno Starbucks Drive Thru “Pays It Forward” for 73 Orders (ksfm.cbslocal.com)
• Woman Creates Website To Encourage, Track Random Acts Of Kindness (fox17online.com)
• Kevin Bacon: Why Tuesday Is the Best Day Ever (huffingtonpost.com)