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When altruism is remunerated: Understanding the bases of voluntary public service among lawyers

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

Fiona Kay  and
Robert Granfield
Fiona Kay*
Affiliation:
1Department of Sociology, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada
Robert Granfield
Affiliation:
2Department of Sociology, State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, New York, USA
*
Fiona Kay, Department of Sociology, Queen's University, D-431 Mackintosh-Corry Hall, 99 University Avenue, Kingston, ON K7L 3N6, Canada., Email: kayf@queensu.ca
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Abstract

The legal profession claims a duty of public service that calls on lawyers to volunteer their time through “pro bono” work (i.e., free legal service). And increasingly law firms strongly endorse pro bono and even remunerate time that is provided to clients without charge. But what happens when pro bono is mandated by the law firm, even compensated? Is altruism undermined? Drawing on a survey of 845 lawyers, we develop an integrated theoretical model to account for how volunteering takes place in the course of legal work. The analysis reveals psychological traits, collective norms, economic exchanges, and organizational dimensions shape lawyers' pro bono work in intriguing ways with marked distinctions emerging when pro bono is remunerated by firms. Collective norms known to foster altruistic behavior appear most relevant to pro bono that is outside the job (i.e., unpaid), while organizational supports and constraints as well as economic exchange factors appear most salient to pro bono that is compensated within firms. We argue that a theory of pro bono work requires a more refined understanding of the forces promoting helping behaviors across several dimensions: whether to help, how much to help, and with or without compensation.

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ARTICLES
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 56 , Issue 1 , March 2022 , pp. 78 - 100
Copyright
© 2022 Law and Society Association.

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Footnotes

How to cite this article: Kay, Fiona, and Robert Granfield. 2022. “When altruism is remunerated: Understanding the bases of voluntary public service among lawyers.” Law & Society Review 56(1): 78-100. https://doi.org/10.1111/lasr.12586

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