Just tell your bosses you can do pro bono because it’s against your religion. You wouldn’t be lying.
Heh - I rather guessed you wouldn’t like my proposal. Fair enough, then - what’s yours?
And, no, I don’t concede that you didn’t promise to try to do pro bono work as your time and resources permitted - but the difficulty is that you appear to only believe that your oath obliges you to follow those professional rules backed by the threat of punishment (that is, the ones you’d follow out of self-interest, without any oath at all.) My position is that if something is in the rules of professional conduct in our jurisdiction, we’ve sworn to do it - but if you believe the only “real” rules are the ones that can get you in trouble, I’m at a loss as to how to convince you otherwise.
Which is why I’d left our discussion aside - I don’t know how to argue with a grown man who essentially insists that “If I can’t get in trouble for it, it’s not unethical.” I can only repeat that, in our society, there are many examples of ethical obligations - towards friends, family, co-workers, and so on - that are not backed by the threat of punishment, but are nonetheless taken seriously by most civilized persons.
But I’ll thank you not to take my reluctance to continue a fruitless discussion as a concession of your position’s rightness.
That sucks, and I’m truly sorry for it, Bricker. But I assume you’d agree that such things are quite rare?
This is a whoosh, right?
Like a Harrier flying low and slow directly overhead. 
This I agree with.
Tho I am unaware of any requirements this side of the pond, such mandatory proposals are floated regularly.
If plumbing were an integral part of the machinery of government, a part which everyone has a right to, then a plumber may be required to do pro bono work. As a lawyer, you are also an officer of the court, with responsibilities and expectations that perhaps a private service provider in a less governmentally-central field would not have.
Mr E, you are once again conflating “what is required by the rules” and “what is ethical according to general notions of right and wrong.” You also still seem to not understand what it means for something to be required or not, and you’re still using your pejoratuve argument of me simply fearing punishment. So, I guess we are done with this debate (you lost, by the way).
As for my solution to the “problem” of some people not being able to afford a lawyer–I see it as just another instance of someone wanting something they can’t afford. They should attempt to get it through charity, and, failing that, go without. Public funding of legal representation should only be for criminal cases.
For some reason, your first paragraph reminds me of a banner hanging on an aircraft carrier’s flight deck - I don’t quite know why …
Skip it. I’m curious about your belief that public funding of legal services should only be available in criminal matters. What of, for example, landlord/tenant issues? Big cities, sadly, often have slumlords who exploit vulnerable tenants in all sorts of ways - denying they received rent and attempting eviction, refusing to fix mold or repair appliances, refusing to return deposits, and so on. These are serious problems - a wrongful eviction is an obvious disaster, and even the loss of a deposit check can be a serious setback for low-income folks. If these people can’t find an appropriate charity, would you say they should just take their lumps? For that matter, you’re aware that a lot of charities, including legal aid nonprofits, get government grants - aren’t you? Should we cut those out as well?
And if we do this, don’t we run the danger that a lot of poor families will lose housing, or end up in dangerously substandard housing, for want of remedy through the courts?
Guess I am de-lurked for good.
Does this then apply to politicians? Judges? Policemen? Civil Servants by the million - that’d include social security, the tax office, the whole lot.
Why single out lawyers? We’re all just cogs in the wheel.
The answer is probably this: money. But that takes me back to my plumber. Or, for that matter, my judge - many of 'em make a good deal more than the average solicitor.
I don’t buy it otherwise. In what other field do we say: you’re important, you make good dough, you should do shit for free? Compare your average lawyer to, say, the chief exec of BP. Where’s the call for him to do 200 hours a year for zip?
Still think it stinks.
Has a policeman ever charged you for his services?
If you’re replying to me then: of course he has. I pay my taxes to pay his wages, and his pension, and he gets paid according to the hours of work he does. And gets overtime, too, if he works extra. I know of no cop, anywhere, told “work a few hours for free tomorrow”. I’m sure some do. But not many, I’d wager.
Or a judge?
ETA - and as many have said, pro bono hours are often billable.
Hold on - are we now suggesting Judges and policemen work for free?
I’ll vote for that.
It’s a poor analogy. They are paid for the work they do, and in the case of the police, it’s by the hour. And they are not routinely asked “do some for free”.
I fail to see the point. Public servants do not work pro bono, as a rule. They are paid. How do the judge/police examples help?
Mr E–ive got two words for you re landlord/tenant issues: pro se.
And the overwhelming majority of decision makers in the government that orders our society are lawyers. The judicial branch is run exclusively by lawyers turned judges. Judges want to play golf, go on local bar association junkets and basket weave. I know a few very old retired judges that donate their time to running settlement conferences. This is essential, but in the last 25 years settlement conferences have also turned into a free market free for all. The free market has its place, but the judicial system is not part of that place. Nothing could be worse than for settlement judges and arbitrators to be competing for services. They are interested in repeat services. That, however, is a whole nuther rant.
Unless you were being sarcastic, it’s a sign of the apocalpyse.
Well, even a stopped watch is right twice a day. And Rand Rover is another such watch on this issue.
It is dishonorable to swear to uphold and support a constitution and set of laws that most people don’t have access to, uphold a set of canon of ethics that mouth the words that everyone has access and then turn around and say it’s a swell system where a poor person’s access is limited to those instances of finding a lawyer willing to take food out of his/her family’s mouths to do that. Yes, I know of no doctor who wouldn’t do the same thing, but doctor’s actually care about individual human beings.
WTF? Why the hell are all these people agreeing with me? Am I in Bizarro world? And other lawyers agreeing with me? Shit! That ain’t right! Mutherfuckers are supposed to argue about everything.
I suppose I deserve it for having agreed with Rand Rover’s result and not his reasoning.
I apologise.
SDMB = yes
I disagree
In my experience it is pretty much the norm in any sort of computing position, especially programmers and sysadmins.
If it were a crime to give advice about plumbing, without being a licensed plumber, the rules might be different.
Professional engineers are also encouraged to do pro bono work. I’ve done it.