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Communication Dans Un Congrès Année : 2023

Should we trust large law firms to take care of society? A critical assessment of lawyers’ pro bono practice

Charles Bosvieux-Onyekwelu

Résumé

My proposal investigates the spread of pro bono practice in large law firms, that is, the provision of free legal services for NGOs, charities and the poor. This form of skill-based volunteering is part and parcel of legal capitalism: in the organisational structure of big law firms, pro bono participation is factored into annual bonuses and counts toward billable hour quotas. In other words, there is a positive correlation between a firm’s revenue (as measured by the rate of profit per partner) and the annual volume of pro bono work hours achieved. Equally, these firms showcase their pro bono commitment in access to pitches, request for proposals, even mergers. Drawing on 62 interviews with pro bono professionals (including attorneys, paralegals, NGOs leaders, bar representatives, heads of clearing houses), observations in the Parisian and Chicagoan branches of two global law firms coupled with ethnographic work during pro bono events such as the Pro Bono Forum and the Pro Bono Week, I suggest that these data hint at pro bono as a narrative of elite lawyers to justify for the fact that the bar is still a profession and not a business. Further, transnational lawyers’ commitment for social justice can be questioned when it appears to thrive at the expense of their pro bono clients’ political development; when such philanthropy curbs NGOs and protest groups advocacy as it entails a collaboration with global law firms and deters the former from expressing views that the latter’s influential paying clients may find controversial; finally, when in the global context of a more caring form of capitalism (by which corporations signal their effort to help the community and favour citizenship), fiscal policies to incentivise pro bono practice coincide with cuts in public services funding and with the erosion of Welfare programmes at a national level.

Domaines

Sociologie
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Dates et versions

hal-04176120 , version 1 (02-08-2023)

Identifiants

  • HAL Id : hal-04176120 , version 1

Citer

Charles Bosvieux-Onyekwelu. Should we trust large law firms to take care of society? A critical assessment of lawyers’ pro bono practice. ISA World Congress of Sociology, International Sociological Association, Jun 2023, Melbourne (AUS), Australia. ⟨hal-04176120⟩
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