Author
Published
16/04/2021
While many lawyers believe there is a “morale obligation” and “professional responsibility” to do pro bono, for junior lawyers especially, there are also plenty of professional and personal benefits that can be realised by doing pro bono.
Through explaining these benefits, how they can be achieved, and some of the major considerations in deciding to do pro bono, this article hopes to begin instilling a stronger desire in junior lawyers to seek out pro bono opportunities and engrain those behaviours as we progress through our careers.
This article doesn’t detail the benefits and opportunities are for junior lawyers to undertake pro bono – there’s plenty of literature out there that explains how pro bono benefits the individual. This simple diagram summarises a lot of the literature (and lived experience in my case).
Professional Benefits
- Diversity in practice areas
- New contexts for problem solving
- Different clients needs and reception to technical advice
- All walks of life to hear from and communicate directly with
- Opportunity to manage aspects of legal work and effort
- New ideas and solutions to bring to your fee-earning work
Personal Benefits
- Boost mental health
- Explore the law that you love
- See the impact of your work, first hand
- Increase your exposure
- Build a personal brand
- Better understand the world
This article instead explores the important factors that junior lawyers should take into consideration when trying to prioritise, or even get access to pro bono.
Burning out on pro bono does nobody any favours
Balancing pro bono with your existing workload is important if these professional and personal benefits listed are to be realised. Open communication with all stakeholders about your capacity, competing priorities, and when it’s getting to be too much is vital.
Ad hoc support through community legal centres and clinics is great, but those dedicated individuals that make a habit out of their pro bono and can be relied on to turn up each week/fortnight/month are what community legal centres value the most. Find your sustainable limit and only add to it when your existing workload allows it. Inversely, if you want to carve out some time for pro bono and you’re currently at capacity, show the above benefits to your manager and let them come back to you with reasons why pro bono is a bad idea – I’ll shout anyone a coffee that reaches out to me with three justifications against pro bono.
Your pro bono clock and fee-earning clock run on the same time
For many not-for-profit organisations and disadvantaged individuals, the offer of pro bono legal assistance generates a sigh of relief.
Some feel as though the kindness of a firm to do free/reduced fee work for them means that any work standard is better than not getting the advice – however, this isn’t always the case.
Your professional obligations are the same regardless of the client, and the impact of subpar legal advice to pro bono clients is likely to have very real, very negative consequences. Think about your personal brand and increased exposure – it works both ways and the timeliness and quality of your pro bono advice is the key factor that will help you to realise or negate that benefit.
“Yeah, I have access to a database”
If you wish to use your workplace legal database for extra-curricular pro bono, make sure you run it by your manager/HR. In the case of government lawyers, government resources are only to be used for government purposes, and while a government purpose includes professional development, that is an ancillary consequence of pro bono work.
It is also okay to say you cannot use work resources for extra-curricular pro bono. Most junior lawyers will be providing extra-curricular pro bono through established clinics and services which should have all the resources needed to provide sound legal advice.
Whoops, I got it wrong…
Private practice lawyers are generally not covered by their workplace’s professional indemnity insurance for advice provided outside of their operations (i.e. outside of a firm’s pro bono engagement or arrangement with a community legal centre). Likewise, in-house government legal teams are generally not covered by professional indemnity insurance. However, if a junior lawyer works with a community legal centre or the pro bono is being provided through a clinic, the lawyer is likely to be covered by the partner organisation’s professional indemnity insurance. It is important to check there is appropriate insurance coverage for any pro bono work you do.
