Pro Bono

-- By SkylarPolansky - 15 Feb 2012

Introduction

“Certain words and phrases are useful for the purpose of releasing pent-up emotions, or putting babies to sleep, or inducing certain emotions and attitudes in a political judicial audience." (Cohen, 812).

I believe the phrase law firms, trained in the mastery of words and manipulation of phrases, use to allow its worker babies to sleep at night is Pro Bono. 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 time an attorney felt they had 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 what it may illuminate about a problem within the firm structure and how to fix it.

What does it mean??

“All concepts that cannot be defined in terms of the elements of actual experience are meaningless." (Cohen, 826).

The only elements through which firms attempt to define the pro bono experience are hours. Firms institute pro bono hour requirements. They award prizes (coffee mugs, blankets, and handbags emblazoned with the firm name) that increase in worth according to the amount of hours completed. Some firms use the number of hours spent on pro bono projects in their calculus of who makes partner. Still others allow attorneys to “credit” time spent on pro bono projects towards the required number of billable hours. By re-naming hours spent on pro bono cases “credits,” firms imply real work was not done. Firms attempt to define pro bono not by its elements – the people helped, the emotions felt – but instead by reductive, numerical processes that serve to devalue the potential benefit of pro bono.

Reducing pro bono to billable hours 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. It feels good to help a fellow human in need. This emotion could be a stand-alone reward for pro bono but instead firms turn the hours spent achieving this goal into billable quantities. This allows firms to keep public count of their mitzvahs while taking the attorney’s attention away from the emotional impact of their work and the human helped. Attorneys unconsciously devalue the emotional good felt from helping others. However this causes splitting within the attorneys’ unconscious. It does not fully abolish the emotional good, but rather masks it in silly toys and overflowing time-tickets.

Instead of the parade of hours by which pro bono is currently measured, it would be better, more functional, to define pro bono in terms of the elements of the actual experience of doing the work. Compilations of testimonies from individuals involved in pro bono (attorneys and clients), the emotions they felt, and the lessons they learned. Firms could quantify and display the number of successful cases, so as to satisfy their desire to have public proof of the good done.

Resistance will be met because this would allow attorneys to feel the full power of doing work for the right side. But at a certain point a business can only thrive if it’s employees are happy. Fear that employees will quit because they feel more emotional satisfaction from pro bono is an unpersuasive reason to engender unhappiness and prevent attorneys from feeling the benefit of helping others. A business model built around keeping employee morale low cannot survive. Firm attorneys may get monetary satisfaction from their everyday work, and allowing them an outlet in which they feel emotional satisfaction might actually encourage attorneys who would otherwise leave to stay.

However this more functional method of tracking pro bono and the reduction in turnover that could result will likely not be a strong enough counter-argument for the economic value in the current process. Reducing pro bono to billable hours satisfies the attorneys’ moral obligation (attached to their license) to give back to society, and does so in an economical way. Partners' time is most valuable. Because associates are concerned with filling pro bono hour requirements and going above and beyond those requirements (it looks good if you're on the partner track) partners are able to pass off their pro bono hour obligations to underling associates who's time is less valuable and who want the pro bono gold stars. Firms fulfill their moral obligations while simultaneously maximizing the money squeezed out of every hour by outsourcing the pro bono work to underling attorneys within the firm.

What does it mean???

Too many times at Skadden I listened to associates speak listlessly of illusions they had of doing good with their license. Too many times throughout this first year of law school have I listened to classmates who came to law school with the intention of helping people instead now say “I’ll work at a firm for a while and do pro bono work…”

As currently practice pro bono is a misnomer. It is not for the good of the people; it is for the reputation of the firm and the mollification of the collective conscious of the attorneys doing the work. But the mollification doesn’t work. To reduce something so human into hours and percentages robs a meaningful experience of the emotional benefit it provides, and thus leaves one feeling hollow inside. Attorneys split. Firms put the business before the employees in every respect without recognizing that the employees are what make the business. Defining pro bono in terms of its actual elements – the emotions bred from helping those in need has potential to make this area of law firms functional. There is a chance helping attorneys feel happier in at least part of their work will help the firm function better as well.