If you just do the math, pro bono service seems to be one bright spot on an otherwise gloomy economic landscape. In the largest firms, for which we have the best data, unpaid hours have gone up in the face of the recession as other financial indicators have generally gone down. Law firms in the 2009 Am Law 200 — American Lawyer‘s ranking by revenue — increased their total pro bono contributions by nearly 15% during the previous year, while the average attorney logged an additional five hours of unpaid assistance. Yet these numbers — impressive though they are — tell only part of the story. Large firms deserve much credit for increasing the quantity of their pro bono service. But what about its quality?
To gain a clearer sense of the challenges of “doing good” in times of trouble, we recently surveyed the members of the Association of Pro Bono Counsel and collected quantitative data on pro bono from other sources. Our study, published in a 2010 Fordham Law Review symposium on the impact of the recession on the legal profession, examines the challenges faced by large-firm pro bono programs and suggests directions for reform.
