Seriously, complaining about an employer’s requirements of the staff is sort of unlike you. Even if you personally don’t agree with lawyers having pro bono requirements, firms like having pro bono and charitable work to maintain good PR, and the higher ups tend to notice who has the “right attitude” towards his civic obligation and who doesn’t. No matter how much it galls you, it behooves one to smile broadly while eating that particular shit sandwich. Besides, surely there’s somebody who’s deserving of some charitable work that you would find rewarding. You’ve mentioned a particular children’s charity before - maybe you could look into doing some child advocacy or attorney ad litem work for abused or neglected children.
20 hours???
The target for real lawyers is 50. I was deeply ashamed the only year so far I didn’t make it.
Since you are so righteous about this issue why don’t you go explain to your boss how ridiculous the E-mail is. I’m sure they’ll empathize
Is there any obstacle to replacing lawyers with software programs? It’s just looking up shit and finding the best recommendation. Like expedia.com for airline flights. Pro Bono seems like a useful time-filler for sentient attorneys.
Finders, minders, and grinders.
Randy is a grinder who is truly clueless as to how a firm gains a reputation and attracts clients. He’ll never become a finder, and therefore never rise to the top. He’s just meat from which the firm takes its cut.
If he had the intelligence, experience and balls that he thinks he has, he would have cut loose from the herd and put together his own firm, but not having what it takes, he simply sits there, grinding out billable hours each day for the benefit of those who provide him his clients, nothing more than the legal equivalent of a bum boy, complaing that his ass hurts when he is told to bend over.
Well, since as a general rule I don’t feel sorry for anyone who makes more money than I do, I don’t feel sorry for you, Rand.
I do feel sorry for your kid, though. Growing up hearing about how much the n’er-do-wells and hangers-on drag down society, and that one has no moral obligation to help others less fortunate than they, cannot be good for one’s mental health.
Are you all fucking nuts?!? If you were poor and down on your luck, would you want this neanderthal-wannabe defending you? Rand Rover, I hope that you fight this with everything you’ve got-the indigent deserve much more than you can offer them, and you deserve everything you are going to get with an attitude like that.
We could try the Voight-Kampff Empathy Test, but I suspect folks could program things like RR that would slip through, and then we’d be really fucked.
Too bad – perhaps you should have joined a firm that didn’t require pro bono work.
If Rand Rover objects to his employer’s policy of pro bono work, he is free to seek work elsewhere. Nobody is holding a gun to his head forcing him to work there.
Doesn’t it suck when people gripe about largely self-created problems?
Let’s put this in terms Rand can understand.
A senior partner makes more money than you do. So anything he thinks is better than anything you think.
You are so pathetic on so many levels.
Yeah, Rand, why are you still working there if it’s such an affront to your sensibilities? What are you, some kinda second-hander?
In Rand Rover’s defence, if the firm is expecting to take the PR credit for their lawyers doing X hours of pro bono work, they could just as easily foot the bill themselves. We’ve certainly had plenty of non-lawyers rightfully complaining about their employers expecting them to do things off the clock for the company’s benefit. From the client’s point of view there’s little difference whether the lawyer is getting paid for his time or not, as long as the firm doesn’t pass on the cost.
Nobody’s yet found a sleaze algorithm powerful enough.
Oh gawd, I’m feeling sick because I actually AGREE with Mr R Rover in this instance. It’s akin to corporations forcing you to donate to groups like United Way ‘for the good of the companies reputation’. Both practices I find really dodgy.
However, that being said, lawyers know from the time that they graduate from uni that some of their work is going to be difficult, to say the least. Whilst Mr R Rover is copping a load from us here at the SDMB, I’m absolutely certain that (if what he says is true) he’ll be copping an even BIGGER shitstorm from his overseers who will find his attitude problematic and perhaps worthy of investigation to determine future employment.
Y’see RandRover, it’s great to stick to your principles and shit, but sometimes they let you down.
Good luck with yer’ projects son. 
And now he’s objecting. What is he, some kind of pinko subversive socialist commie trying to undermine the sanctity of the contract?
When the two voices in your head are finished fighting it out, get back to us and tell us which side you came down on.
They do foot the bill – disbursements on the file, overhead including Randy’s staff, Randy’s E & O insurance, Randy’s benefits, and their loss of income that Randy would otherwise be earning for them. It’s just that the firm’s rate that they bill clients is set for Randy’s at $0 rather than a few hundred an hour. It’s a basic part of the job, no different than any number of things that a lawyer is required to do that are not billable to clients, ranging from attending internal management meetings to supervising staff to attending professional functions to attending private functions to offering public information sessions to attending or teaching continuing professional development courses, and on and on and on. A lot of what a lawer does is not billable. By working for a firm, a lawyer signs on to performing both billable and non-billable work. The easiest way of remunerating the lawyer is to pay a salary, or salary plus commission, or commission only. Where RR has fallen off the rails is in assuming that he should only be permitted to spend time on items that lead to him earning a commission, rather than recognizing that what he signed on for ranges a lot wider than that. perform efficiently on those files, or do you think that he would milk the files?