A Lawyer With a Conscience--It’s No Joke : When Jack Berman fell victim to Gian Luigi Ferri’s craziness . . . it provided further evidence that the good seem to have an unusual knack for dying young.

The attorneys were killed on July 1 and within a few days everyone was telling lawyer jokes. Jay Leno declared open season. Mayor Richard Riordan, himself an attorney, would share one with City Hall reporters. (Alas, it was off the record.) If you haven’t told some lawyer jokes yourself, you’ve no doubt laughed at a few.

This was, of course, just a new twist in a tragicomedy that is already several centuries old. It promises to last at least a few more centuries, or until another giant meteor strikes Earth, thick dust clouds block out all sunlight and potential clients become extinct. (Scientists theorize that lawyers, like cockroaches, will survive.)

Alan H. Friedenthal, for one, wasn’t laughing much in early July. This 37-year-old Sherman Oaks attorney was distressed by the way a mass murder in the offices of a San Francisco law firm had given way to such biting mirth. Harvey Saferstein, then president of the State Bar of California, had suggested that jokes portraying lawyers as heartless leeches might trigger a madman’s murderous rage--remarks that sorely underestimated the depth of the public’s disdain toward the legal profession. We rolled our eyes and reacted with a torrent of barbs, the more vicious, the better.

Friedenthal didn’t just grimace and try to laugh it off. He’s an immediate past president of the California Young Lawyers Assn. (CYLA), a group that represents 50,000 lawyers under the age of 37. He now sits as that group’s representative of the State Bar’s board of governors. He didn’t want the tragedy of San Francisco to be remembered for its aftermath.

And as he learned about the late Jack Berman, an idea began to take shape.

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When Jack Berman fell victim to Gian Luigi Ferri’s craziness that day in the offices of Pettit & Martin, it provided further evidence that the good seem to have an unusual knack for dying young. Ferri, who ended his siege by committing suicide, was apparently trying to avenge a 10-year-old grievance against Pettit & Martin. Berman, as it happened, didn’t even work for the firm.

Berman was a 35-year-old partner at Bronson, Bronson & McKinnon--a rising star in one of San Francisco’s largest law firms. He was, as the San Francisco Chronicle described him, “a serious, intense young lawyer who billed more hours than any of his colleagues.”

But more significantly, as Bronson lawyer Bonnie Cohen told the Chronicle: “He was the conscience of the firm. He gave much more than he took.” Another attorney described Berman as having “a very open heart and a very strong conscience.”

Pro bono publico-- for the public good--is the term the profession uses for donated legal services. Berman chaired the firm’s pro bono committee and logged hundreds of unpaid hours himself, working with charities and minority groups. At the age of 29, he co-founded Tax-Aid, a program to provide legal help to low-income people with tax problems. The son of Holocaust survivors, he had served for many years as president of the local chapter of American Jewish Congress.

Berman’s conscience was felt at Bronson in other ways. As the Chronicle put it: “Bronson is a big firm that defends employers and big companies, but Berman convinced his partners that they should represent workers who might have been wrongly fired or victims of discrimination.”

Berman was, in fact, handling one of the firm’s rare plaintiff’s suits on July 1, representing Jody Jones Sposato, who was suing a Texas company for sex discrimination and wrongful termination. With Berman at her side, Sposato was giving a deposition when Ferri walked in with a grudge and a gun and killed them both. Before taking his own life, Ferri fatally shot eight people and wounded six others.

Berman is survived by his wife, attorney Carol M. Kingsley, and their 1-year-old son, Zachary.

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The denouement of this particular story will come in October, when the CYLA presents some deserving barrister with the Jack Berman Distinguished Award of Achievement at a conference in San Diego. Actually, the CYLA hasn’t settled on the precise wording, but Jack Berman’s name will be featured somewhere.

The award will honor one California lawyer who, like Jack Berman, was known for his service to the community.

Last year, for example, the CYLA honored Tony Blain, a deputy city attorney for Los Angeles, who devoted thousand of hours of work to helping riot victims.

That was the first year the CYLA presented such an award. By deciding to re-christen the honor in Jack Berman’s memory, the CYLA will be honoring two lawyers, albeit one posthumously.

For the CYLA directors, it wasn’t a snap decision. After all, there were other lawyers who died that day who were a credit to the profession. But, as Friedenthal put it, “If Jack Berman was alive, he’d be a strong candidate for this award.”

It’s more than a nice gesture. If the legal profession wants to improve its image, it needs to do more to rid itself of the shysters. The bar also needs to encourage public service and salute those who distinguish themselves by their generous deeds.

And this way, one of the good ones will be saluted for many years to come.