29th September 2021
One of the joys of being a lawyer is that you will often be asked to do stuff for free.
The request may be from a friend or relative, or from friends of friends, or from acquaintances, or from people who only know that you are a lawyer.
Often these requests will be framed as asking you to do it ‘pro bono’ – which many seem to think is a synonym for ‘for free’.
And they will ask you to do stuff for free when they would never dream of asking, say, a plumber for something for nothing.
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The phrase ‘pro bono’ comes from the Latin phrase ‘pro bono publico’ – which means not for free but for the public good.
And so when a lawyer – or anyone else – does a thing pro bono publico they would (or should) be doing it for the benefit of the public.
So when a person asks you to work ‘pro bono’ for the benefit of, say, their commercial company or for the value of their house, it may be that they want you to work for free when they could pay you as well as they would pay a plumber, but it is not easy to square that private benefit with ‘pro bono publico’.
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What is, of course, ‘pro bono publico’ is the provision of legal services to those who cannot otherwise afford them.
That is because there is a public good in those who would not have access to legal advice being properly advised in dealing with the law – especially in potentially life-changing situations involving the criminal law, immigration, housing or employment.
But this is because such people getting this legal assistance is the public good – not that it is being given for free.
And so a properly resourced system of legal aid is also for the good of the public: ‘pro bono publico’.
Many lawyers choose to do work (sometimes a lot of work) for free – and those who do so are quiet saviours who often make real differences to people facing life-changing situations.
But it is not a sustainable way to provide legal services to the most vulnerable in society.
And any sensible reform of legal services should not rely on lawyers providing professional services for free, and especially not outside their areas of expertise and experience.
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Yesterday the Labour politician and justice spokesperson David Lammy said the following in a conference speech:
‘City law firms are making billions in profit while low-paid workers see their tax bill rise and wages fall.
‘Labour recognises the importance of the private sector working in partnership with the public sector.
‘That’s why today we are announcing that a Labour government would support the introduction of a new national pro bono service.
‘With binding pro bono targets to support those who can’t afford legal advice and are ineligible for legal aid.’
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Although like others, I have a lot of time for Lammy, I do not think this proposal is a sound one.
The city firms making these billions in profit should either be taxed more or pay a compulsory legal services levy so as to ensure that there are paying towards a properly resourced legal advice service.
And instead of having (no doubt well-meaning) City solicitors giving (say) social security law advice (or on anything else outside their usual practice areas) there could be experienced practitioners able to give speedy practical advice to those in need.
(I spent years as a trainee and junior City solicitor helping at free legal advice centres, and with the best will no City lawyer can match an experienced lawyer specialising in the relevant areas of law.)
This policy proposal is misconceived.
City law firms – and also commercial and corporate barristers – can and should be helping support areas of legal practice where there is less funding available.
But getting those lawyers to advise on things for free about which they have no particular knowledge or experience is not the best way of helping those who need help.
There should be instead legal advice centres in every community with the resources in place for lawyers who actually know what they are advising on to help those who are unable to get legal advice elsewhere.
That would not be for free – for they would need government funding – but it would be for the public good.
That is: ‘pro bono publico’.
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I speak as a solicitor advocate who does work free, mostly I hope – within yr definition (which I adopt) – pro bono publico.
But.
As you would say.
That is my choice.
What the likes of Mr Lammy should have learned from history, especially the 1945 Labour government (and the 20th century generally), is that things like legal aid (and education and medicine) should be a matter of right. That right may be tempered by assessment of the merit of your case and of your means.
It should be paid for by the taxpayer. It should never ever be a matter of the charity of anyone, even of a large City firm. The Labour party must learn….
It is important that those who are not aware should learn that paying tax is not contributing to government spending.
Oh, we can express it the other way around in an MMT friendly way, if you prefer.
It is much better for the government to create and spend say £500 on specialist lawyers (five hours at £100 per hour, or 10 hours at £50 per hour, or whatever) and then, to inhibit inflation from an expanded money supply, to recoup that expenditure through taxing the city lawyer 50% of their £1000 per hour fee (toppy, but not unusual these days) than to compel the city lawyer to give up half an hour or an hour of their valuable time to reluctantly give a few morsels of advice falling outside their area of expertise.
Few people with an immigration or social housing or benefits or criminal law problem really benefit from snippets of free legal advice from an M&A or derivatives or funds lawyer, even if the lawyer wants to give it.
It’s not a case of what I prefer, it’s just how it works as you described. I hadn’t understood the message until DAG explained it. Certainly public and private sectors working together is necessary for a just and fair society. But, I wanted to make clear that “taxpayers money” is a totally meaningless phrase. Tax has numerous purposes and providing government income isn’t one of them.
Could we have a system whereby pro bono isn’t necessary?
I agree 100%. Literally nothing more to add. You really have encapsulated the whole debate wonderfully comprehensively. Thank you.
I can assure you that plenty of people (outside of immediate family) ask us engineers for help, for free, without any shame. Sometimes it is given, other times not. And some of this would fall under the definition of pro bono publico. The three most common are helping private individuals with whatever; or giving our time to write/comment/draft standards (national, international, etc – BSI, ISO, IEC, etc etc); or helping with various forms of education. Sometimes this simply costs our time, but also it can result in financial costs.
The point is, pro bono is not just a lawyer thing. And strangely, I’ve yet to come across a properly funded Engineering Aid scheme.
Plumbers and electricians on the other hand …….
Yes, plenty of businesses and individuals voluntarily provide their time or goods or services to deserving causes for free or at significantly below the usual price “for the public good”. School governors, charity trustees, volunteers in shops or at events. Including bankers and accountants and engineers and doctors and other professionals providing the benefit of their expertise. Even plumbers and electricians and other trades have been know to provide free labour and materials at cost or for free.
But few are required to do so by the government, with binding targets.
I wonder how Lammy proposes to implement it. A regulatory requirement from the SRA or BSB? Some sort of national service obligation?
Can you make a case for a government funded Engineering Aid Scheme or National Engineering Service to provide access to free engineering advice, similar to Legal Aid which should allow poor people to exercise their legal rights or defend themselves against richer people (although by the way Legal Aid has been heavily restricted and far from properly funded for decades: it pays slowly and poorly, and few people qualify for help; many are surprised to find it isn’t there for them when they need it) or the NHS which should provide access to free healthcare for all (and does miracles with relatively little funding)?
I started my legal career many years ago doing criminal, family, housing and immigration but then moved on to international arbitration. I’m dipping my toes in Pro bono work now. It’s more difficult than what I am now experienced in doing and I definitely don’t have the skills. Far better to pay people properly. I’m really disappointed that Lammy, who should know better, makes this very feeble proposal.
Perhaps Lammy was lent on? He made a number of odd comments today in media interviews, none of which seemed like himself.
Very well said.
Errrmm…
Isn’t that just another way of saying “we’re expanding the scope and reach of legal aid“?
A good start would be to refer to its full name “pro bono publico” to emphasise the important “publico” element, rather than just “pro bono”, which may sound like “for free” or “for their good” for those who don’t know the full term. Surely, not even “Bono” himself could disagree with that.
A very real problem is the cost involved in any legal matter and the fact that there is no alternative available. This can also cause a huge disparity of “arms” when an individual is forced to take on a large entity. Justice ought not to be for sale to the wealthiest, but we are where we are.
On the plus side, there is something to be said for obliging all solicitors in England and Wales to perform a set number of hours each year advising pro bono at their local CAB.
It would, I respectfully suggest, be more useful than some of the CPD courses I have attended over the years.
I disagree – the problem you identify is about the poor quality of CPD courses. That is no reason for unexperienced and non-expert advisors to be inflicted on poor people.
The Libertarian model relies on charitable work to enable it to cope with the issue of individuals with insufficient means
Arguing that it is unsustainable is seen as a partisan position that should be dismissed
Seems to me we have at least two different kinds of ‘Pro Bono’ here. Firstly that which should more properly fall into Legal Aid and then those cases where some wrong has been committed but no one wants or is allowed to take on the case. This second looks to me more properly Pro Bono Publico.
Then where some valuable good get dished out for free we immediately get ‘taking the p&ss’. For good reasons and bad we see much screaming and raving over folk who broken the law and then claim some kind of ‘rights’ to avoid deportation. On the one hand we have the Home Office seeking easy wins. One the other hand we have what looks like making up last minute excuses to avoid that which seems richly deserved. I am in favour of Legal Aid, but dished out on a rough and ready basis with TTP stamped on hard.
A big snag is that there is a great deal of ruin in the world and it costs money to fix and immediately exposes even more ruin that needs fixing. In short better Legal Aid (and Pro Bono Publico) will open up even more matters that cost money. Given that most cases will be in immigration, criminal law, employment and housing I can see Jack & Jill Public picking up the cost all the way round. All areas of big cost and no one to sue.
A useful insight into ‘pro bono’.
With solicitor charges in the region of £350-£450/hour, and often more (maybe £6-700/r for barristers) I wonder just how an ‘ordinary working men/women (which is probably most workers in UK), taking home say £20/hour can ‘afford’ such services in reality?
I have a case that should be challenged (and which, in essence, would be for the overall public good to do so) but advised it could cost £20k to deal with.
Is it not true in reality that, for most people in the UK, justice is a price they cannot afford?
Agree with your analysis.
I give small donations to the Good Law Project because it’s the only legal organisation I know of which is trying to stop rampant public wrongs being committed by our allegedly democratically accountable, law-abiding and transparent government.
I also give small donations to Extinction Rebellion and other such organisations in the hope they can put enough pressure on the aforesaid democratically accountable government to safeguard all our interests.
While I still do practise them from time to time, I no longer believe there’s any point to other time-honoured means for influencing government – eg writing to one’s MP and government bodies, writing letters to the press … Voting is also pointless – just a matter of duty. Like many, I’m in a constituency where the vote for one party is and has always been always considerably higher than the combined votes of all the other parties.
Being asked to do free work is far from just a legal thing. If you’re a medic, people feel free to ask your opinion on their ailments, and if you do any kind of computery work people will ask you to help them do things for free. It’s such a common thing that there are T-shirts widely available saying “No, I Will Not Fix Your Computer For Free”. I guess that if you’re a plumber on a social visit, people might well ask you to have a quick look at their plumbing problem. The advantage a plumber has is that they can say they can’t do anything as they don’t have their tools with them, while lawyers, medics, and computery people have to fall back on saying it’s not an area they know about.
I was going to make this exact point about people working in computing. I think that it used to be much worse in the much more unreliable days of Windows 95, 98 and even XP, but it still happens.
Also, to be honest, I think a lot of “computery” people don’t mind too much (I know I don’t), as long as it’s not abused.
The T-shirt I remember people having didn’t have to mention the “for free” part, it was assumed. They just said “No, I will not fix your computer.”