When Nevada’s Green Valley High School held its winter sports award banquet last week, Seattle-based food safety law firm Marler Clark was there to announce a donation of $100,000 to the Henderson-based school.

The donation was made in honor of Green Valley’s former teaching assistant, E. coli victim Linda Rivera, and her family.

Marler Clark managing partner Bill Marler, who represents Rivera, said the donation to the school will provide science scholarships and help fund the wrestling program and special education.

“I am extremely proud to be part of such an event and, even more so, honored to work with a family as courageous as the Riveras,” said Marler. “Linda’s battle with E. coli has certainly been one of the most devastating I’ve ever witnessed in my nearly 20 years of foodborne illness litigation and I know the Riveras are simply overjoyed to see something positive come from this experience.”

There is no reason in the world that Bill and his firm couldn’t have taken this $100 grand and plowed it into SEO, even a cool TV commercial with some unctuous actor looking doe-eyed into the camera and asking, “did your broccoli make you puke?”  If this was about marketing and advertising, there would be no shortage of people claiming to be “professionals” who would have butchered the mother-tongue to prove how badly they wanted it.

But Bill chose instead to donate it to his client’s school, the place where people cared about her, where her children were comforted and where a small community stood behind his client in her time of need.  What a terrible thing to do, help a family, a school and a community. Such a Machiavellian ploy.

Outside the world of foodborne illness litigation and a small town in Nevada, few will know of Bill’s donation.  It’s not like that Facebook kid threw pocket change at Newark, New Jersey.  He’s filthy rich. Bill Marler is just a working lawyer. You should know, however, about this.

Want to let your community know you exist? You could send a check to Bangalore for misspelled SEO juice, or some fast-talking snake oil salesman who will teach you how to become a twitter guru.  If you really want to all in, get the full team, from graphic artist for your critically acclaimed logo which can then be plastered on informercials night after night.  Is there a niche practice for the sleep-deprived?

Or you can use whatever money you would otherwise piss away on nonsense for the good of someone else. Fund a scholarship.  Or a soup kitchen.  There are no shortage of opportunities in every community to help.  And if you happen to also get some gain for yourself out of it, whatever.

People have plenty of bad things to say about lawyers, most of them well-earned.  Some may feel compelled to project their own evil thoughts onto Bill Marler. The point is that regardless of whether there was any thought of gain from an act of generosity in no way makes the gift of Marler Clark less beneficial to that school, to those children and to that community.

Think what you want. Bill Marler did good, and he deserves every bit of recognition he gets for this act of generosity.  And if you’re jealous of the kind words, do something good yourself.

H/T Kevin O’Keefe