Pro Bono Adventures
Featured Volunteer: Casey Frank
December 10, 2025
Colorado Lawyer is spreading tales of pro bono adventures to highlight the impact that pro bono work can have on someone’s life. This month’s featured volunteer is Casey Frank, recipient of the DBA’s 2025 Volunteer Lawyer of the Year Award.
Casey’s Story
Last summer, Eddie arrived at the walk-in VA legal clinic, staffed by volunteer lawyers, and sponsored by the Inner City Health Center. Social work and health care are also available there, with the common goal of reducing the suffering of our veterans.
Eddie was elderly, disheveled, homeless, and paranoid. I invited him to have a cup of coffee. He replied, “I can’t, it was poisoned by politicians.” When asked how he got there, from the downtown shelter where he had slept, he said: “I walked, I had to abandon my car, it was being microwaved by politicians.” He shared his travels at a leisurely pace, and eventually said: “I have a 401K. Can you get it for me?” Asked “how did you earn it?” he replied, “I worked at a grocery store in the Dakotas, decades ago.”
Literal plausibility was not a priority; what mattered was that this was important to him. He had no institution name, nor account number. He did remember a phone, now disconnected. We called anyway, heard it was unassigned, but after a long silence . . . “Voya Financial.”
Voya was unknown to Eddie, but we tracked ’em down. He was unknown to them, but they had helpful suggestions. After an hour and a half, and many calls, we reached an investment bank in Boston, and found his account. It was worth $127,000, and we arranged to auto-transfer $500 per month into a checking account that he could access at any ATM.
I wondered aloud: why not transfer the whole thing into checking? To my surprise, Eddie perked up and engaged the financial advisor in a discussion about the relative tax consequences of periodic versus lump-sum disbursements, interaction with pending social security benefits, and related age milestones. They decided to leave things the way they were. What do I know?
Names and details have been changed to protect the identity of the parties receiving assistance. If you have a pro bono story to share, please contact Casey Frank at letters@caseyfrank.com.
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