Like I said, these are not the sort of cases that you would expect from a biglaw firm’s pro-bono coordinator, political asylum cases maybe, landlord tenant? Not so much.
BTW, having a lawyer always helps. You can go pro-se in tax court too and the tax court has special rules about how you treat pro-se litigants but it doesn’t mean that you wouldn’t be better off with a lawyer.
If I can paraphrase a bit: …it looks like he is hyper-specialized to the degree that he doesn’t know law in general practice terms. Thus the “sorta.”
That’s a statement I’d be comfortable defending as an initial opinion, and would certainly be willing to modify it on more evidence. Primarily, my impression comes more from a lack of detailed posts rather than the presence of any particular error. But when I compare the mouthy bastardy that is my own ouvre at the SDMB, and the contributions of other lawyers, yours doesn’t stand out as a set of contributions explaining the law in a lot of detail.
Agreed. But having an experienced and knowledgeable professional on any sort of project that requires specialized skills always helps.
Yeah, well. I’m pretty sure that is how it works in most jurisdictions. Its either encouraged or STRONGLY encouraged but some jurisdictions allow you to fulfill this moral duty by paying extra money whenever you pay your bar dues. DC does something like this and because most people with DC bars don’t practice in DC, they just send an extra $200 and get a little gold star next to their name.
Well, the problem is that RR is not just a tax lawyer, he sounds like a young tax lawyer. There was a time when tax lawyers had more diverse practices. Now you get pigeonholed into a few code sections. There are literally tax lawyers that know nothing but securitization tax law or leasing tax law or insurance tax law or oil and gas tax law. I don’t know ANY tax lawyers that only do M&A work past their second or third year, there just isn’t enough there to build an entire career on. You Bricker (the generalist) could become a competent M&A tax lawyer in about a semester by taking an LLM course at NYU and reading the Ginsberg text.
We’re not really lawyers the way people envision lawyers but at least we’re not corporate lawyers. Corporate lawyers are mostly human spellcheckers for their first few years of practice, then they move on to getting really good at cutting and pasting, it isn’t until they are 5 or 6 years out of law school before they remotely begin to apply the law to anything.
I do not know a single computer repair guy that does not do way more than 20 hours of pro bono work. Usually for a friend of the family who did something stupid. Or just because we like helping people. I can even cite that I personally engage in such for members of this board when asked.
That tears it! I gotta make friends with a computer guy!!! 
My computer guy gave me a computer.
a), but Rand isn’t being asked to work for free. It’s his company that takes the knock, he gets paid his salary regardless, exactly like an emergency room doctor working on a homeless guy.
I didn’t realize that!!! :dubious:
So, RR… if you are getting paid regardless, then what, exactly, is your beef about working “pro bono”?
Because, correct me if I’m wrong, but if you ARE getting paid, then you aren’t technically working “pro bono” right?
And are we sure he gets paid an annual salary?
Or does he get paid according to how many billable hours he works?
Or some combination of the two?
If he really is a partner, then the odds are that he will not get paid for pro bono work, for usually partners do not run on straight salary.
Well, the pusher always gives a potential junkie the first hit for free.
If I may ask,
1.) Why does your firm, or any firm do cases for free? Is this required by law? I would never work for free.
2.) Do you object to the people that you do pro bono work for? White trash, ghetto people, dirty, smelly people you would never freely associate with? Pro Bono is basically charity work. Even then, if the company pays you the same salary, isn’t it good to help a poor person?
3.) I have always thought Pro Bono was a stupid sounding word. Bono is Cher’s dead ex husband, or that fuck who sings for that 80’s Irish band. Instead of pro bono (the anti-Cher) What about “Law Gratis”. I like it. Classy.
Pro bono does not necessarily mean helping poor people. Other examples of pro bono include being an adjudicator on an administrative tribunal (good experience if you want to become a judge), advising or heading a regulatory body or industry association (good for getting your abilities known by a targeted group), (or assisting a charity, community or arts orgainzation (terrific for networking).
Damuri, you do tax law?
Maybe. I was trying to parse out the just-released eBay v. Craigslist decision and found my eyes glazing over trying to understand it, and that should be pretty much M&A 101, I would imagine.
I console myself hoping that there are M&A guys out there whose eyes glaze over at the issue of when a Terry stop becomes an arrest, so we’re hopefully even, but I can’t shake the nagging feeling that I just gravitated to the “easy” practice area.
And now, of course, it’s moot in that I no longer practice at all. 
I know a fellow who, as a partner, did not like how the in-house office festive season party took away from time he and his clerks would otherwise be spending on billable hours (and no, there was nothing urgent that had to be attended to at that time). So while the board rooms were loaded up with food and booze, and the other lawyers and staff in the building cut loose and partied for the last afternoon before the festive season break, this lawyer stayed in his office and directed that his clerks stay in there offices and keep working. He made his point, and was ridiculed for it. His senior clerk made her point by telling him to fuck off, and joined the office party. His junior clerk made her point by quitting on the spot, which severely buggered up his practice for a few weeks, for around here, good clerks are worth their weight in gold, and are not to be found during the festive season. Unfortunately for the partner, he was so intent on billable hours, that he did not grasp the importance of non-billable items, and his responsibility to the firm (to his other partners) to attend to such non-billable items.
There is a lot more to being a partner than simply being an insulated grinder the way RR is. Hopefully he will grow into his shoes.
I don’t think one can become a competent lawyer in any field simply by attending classes and reading books. The only way to gain competence is through wrestling with live issues in the wild.
I *really *hope that’s a link to Two Girls One Cup.
You realize you’re talking to RR, right?
Yep. I wanted to be an astronaut but decided being a tax lawyer would be more fun.