The Pro Bono Resource Center of Maryland, a hub for attorneys who offer legal services free of charge to Marylanders in need, is not a Jewish organization per se. But it is led by a Jewish woman, guided strongly by her Jewish values.
Sharon Goldsmith has been the executive director of the center since 1990, but her urge to contribute in the nonprofit world goes back much farther than that.
“I thank my mom for instilling a very strong sense of tikkun olam in all of her children. It was how she lived her life,” Goldsmith said in a Baltimore Jewish Times interview. “She would take us to [volunteer] on a traveling hospital ship, and we, as kids, would be scrubbing the floors and walls.”
Those childhood lessons manifested into a professional opportunity when in 1990, Goldsmith began directing the Baltimore-based center. Three and a half decades later, she is still in charge. For Goldsmith, a member of Beth Tfiloh Congregation in Pikesville, the job will never be finished because demand for services always outstrips hours in the day for attorneys to help.
In the year between July 1, 2024, and June 30, 2025, the Pro Bono Resource Center said it closed more than 5,000 cases that impacted more than 14,000 individuals. It said volunteers, including lawyers, paralegals, and interpreters and law students, donated more than 2,200 hours of their time with an estimated dollar value of $413,000.
The organization celebrated its 35th birthday with a “Rooted in Justice Gala” in Baltimore on Nov. 8, giving Goldsmith good reason to reflect on all the work the organization has done over the years and how she ended up as executive director. She applied to the position as a brand-new lawyer who knew that she wanted to use her law degree from George Washington University to work on behalf of the community.
“I got it, and the rest is history,” she said. “I’m incredibly proud of the work that we’ve been able to do and the people I have met along the way. At our gala, I was able to thank at least some of those people.”
Ten of the organization’s last 11 presidents were at the dinner, as were the founders. The work the organization does is serious and sometimes sad, but those who do it manage to keep things positive.
“My deputy and I always joke and say we only hire nice people, which is true, but more than that, they are just the most decent, caring, dedicated people you will ever want to come across,” Goldsmith said. “While it’s challenging and has its difficulties, of course, it just makes it all so much more pleasurable and meaningful and inspiring for me.”
Right now, the organization is focused largely on helping immigrants through its Maryland Immigrant Legal Assistance Project. Goldsmith said that the work that the Pro Bono Resource Center carries out on immigrant and refugee rights has become more complex during the Trump administration, which has prioritized expelling immigrants, refugees, and, in some cases, those who have a legal right to reside in the United States.
As the only legal services program with a regular presence at the state’s immigration court, the Pro Bono Resource Center works many of these cases.
“We speak to many, many people [who] are afraid to come to court,” Goldsmith said. “But we are able to help steer people to the appropriate resources and hopefully sometimes calm their fears, or at least give them some understanding of the system and how it works, which is tremendously powerful because they just have no idea what’s going to happen.”
For Goldsmith, the work ties back to her childhood dream of becoming a lawyer, firmly rooted in the Jewish values she was taught. “Part of who I am is to feel … that I’m making a contribution to the world and helping people,” she said. “I think it is part of my Jewish roots. Like I said, I’m left to work with so many good people who feel the same way, Jewish or not Jewish.”
After decades at the helm, Goldsmith was glad to have a night like the anniversary celebration where she could reflect back on her time leading the Pro Bono Resource Center and all it’s accomplished.
“It was incredibly heartwarming to see so many people in the community who came out to support us, and just have such positive energy,” Goldsmith said. “It was just a wonderful sense of community around supporting our principles of equal access to law and democracy.”
