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SkylarPolanskyFirstPaper 7 - 30 May 2012 - Main.SkylarPolansky
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| | | Introduction | |
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< | During my 2-year experience working at a firm pro bono was both the area of law with which I was most disgusted, and the area of law the firm increasingly touted as its saving grace. Pro bono cases were consistently referenced as the only times when an attorney felt they’d done well, yet pro bono work was spoken of as though it were a side dish to the main course of insurance amalgamations and antitrust defense. The below is an exploration of the meaning of pro bono to a law firm, and a potential solution to fix this part of the law. | >
> | During my 2-year experience working at a firm pro bono was both the area of law with which I was most disgusted, and the area of law the firm increasingly touted as its saving grace. Pro bono cases were consistently referenced as the only times an attorney felt they’d done well, yet pro bono work was spoken of as though it were a side dish to the main course of insurance amalgamations and antitrust defense. Below is an exploration of the meaning of pro bono to a law firm, and a potential solution to fix this part of the law. | | | Problem | |
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< | It is part of every lawyers obligation to serve the public without fee some of the time. This concept is commonly known as pro bono. But the pro bono system as currently practiced, is neither fee-less nor functions to serve the public to the extent it should. Arguably, it best serves the needs of those who are least in need - the biggest private firms who in fact make money off this concept. Firms keep track of pro bono work via hours. Partners – whose time is most valuable monetarily – pass off their pro bono hour obligations to underling associates who bill out at lower hourly rates. This allows firms to make good on their pro bono obligations in a cost effective way. Additionally it gives firms an easy way to keep public count of their mitzvahs, which they use as marketing material to improve their reputation. Reducing pro bono to billable hours also robs attorneys of the full emotional benefit of doing work for the public good, thus ensuring they will not jump ship to board a non-profit lifeboat. Firms don’t want attorneys to fully feel the effect of helping a fellow human in need so they define pro bono not by its elements – the people helped, the emotions felt – but by reductive, numerical processes that devalue the potential benefit of pro bono. | >
> | It is part of every lawyer's obligation to serve the public without fee some of the time. This concept is commonly known as pro bono. But the pro bono system as currently practiced, is neither fee-less nor functions to serve the public to the extent it should. Arguably, it best serves the needs of those who are least in need - the biggest private firms who in fact make money off this concept. Firms keep track of pro bono work via hours. Partners – whose time is most valuable monetarily – pass off their pro bono hour obligations to associates who bill out at lower hourly rates. This allows firms to make good on their pro bono obligations in a cost effective way. Additionally it gives firms an easy way to keep public count of their mitzvahs, which they use as marketing material to improve their reputation. Reducing pro bono to billable hours also robs attorneys of the full emotional benefit of doing work for the public good, thus ensuring they will not jump ship to board a non-profit lifeboat. Firms don’t want attorneys to fully feel the effect of helping a fellow human in need so they define pro bono not by its elements – the people helped, the emotions felt – but by reductive, numerical processes that devalue the potential benefit of pro bono. | | |
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