No, Dewey Cheatem Undhow is a now-inactive lawyer/SDMB member who was far more lucid and honorable than Randy has any pretensions of being.
Not in Maryland. That said, the annual reporting requirement isn’t particularly onerous - it’s not as if they require a breakdown of every place you’ve done pro bono service. The form just asks you how many hours you’ve worked in total. And realistically, I believe there’s an understanding that you might forget about some of the hours you’ve worked, and under-count. The idea isn’t to catch anyone out - it’s really just to shame those attorneys who’ve done no pro bono service at all.
I suspect it’s more so the bar association can say, “our members have devoted XX,XXX hours of time to providing free legal aid to their communities” in its annual report.
I am one who appreciates the pro bono work that attorneys do. My son has a case which is being done pro bono; it has dragged on for two years and it would have been quite a hardship for him to have paid attorney’s fees.
So here’s a big THANK YOU to those who do pro bono work. I appreciate you.
I’m wondering if my firm takes care of that. I am barred in DC & the Commonwealth of Virginia, and have never reported that.
Bricker said you don’t have that rule in VA on the previous page.
Well thank you. Always like a satisfied client!
But the benefit totally flows both ways. It counts as billable for me (except for the stuff I do that has no billing number because it is not firm approved as such), I get great experience, it keeps me sane, and I get to meet wonderful and interesting people and help them.
Oh and my asylum guy gave me a watch. 
yeah. because the law and fair legal representation should only be available to those who can pay you your $100/hr.
asshole
Probably part of it as well, yah.
Where the hell do you find lawyers who only charge $100/hr.? My time costs nearly that much, and I’m not a paralegal and not even in a fee-intensive field.
When you say “ethical obligation,” do you mean (1) an obligation imposed by the ethics rules or (2) an obligation imposed by some incorporeal general notion of right and wrong? If you mean 1, you are dead wrong. If you mean 2, then it’s fine if you think that I have an ethical obligation to so pro bono, but I happen to disagree, and that’s OK.
$100 would get you about 9 minutes, bub.
Includes a happy ending, though.
Trying for the third time:
Does your firm charge your pro bono work to your required billable hours?
In Libertaria, you do have choices.
- Deal with it.
- Get a job somewhere else.
- Go into another line of work
There are probably other choices too.
You’re so awesome.
Hello Again–yes, I think. I obviously haven’t looked that deeply into the policy.
SteveG1–you forgot 4. Bitch about it on the internet. I suppose 4 is really just a special instance of 1.
So, what you’re saying is
a) You are paid in full for your time (actually a bit more, since not every hour you work is billable, but every pro bono hour is)
b) Your employer has the right to direct your work during working hours within legal limits (this is virtually the definition of an employee)
as a result,
c) absolutely nothing is being stolen from you
The only thing your employer’s decree affects is a right you never had to begin with: your right to unlilaterally refuse assignments without repercussions
Correct?
I mean both. If it’s in the professional conduct rules (formerly known, tellingly, as the ethics rules), then you have an ethical obligation to do it. When the state bar puts something in the professional conduct rules, it’s telling you “This is how we expect you, at a bare minimum, to comport yourself as a lawyer.” The fact that the state bar isn’t willing to punish you for failing to live up to this obligation isn’t relevant - not all adult obligations are enforced by threat of punishment.
The obligation imposed by the ethics rules also squares nicely with what you describe as “some incorporeal general notion of right and wrong.” As I mentioned in an earlier post, Western civilization has recognized that lawyers have special and higher duties towards the public since at least the days of ancient Rome. We’re trained in the machinery of civilization itself, physicians to the body politic - and we can no more ignore our pro bono obligations than a physician could walk past a man suffering a heart attack.
Incorrect. I’m not an employee. But thanks for playing.