Pro Bono

Bynormbowley

Most lawyers I know give generously of themselves to the community. The same is true for the other professions. Sports, church, not-for-profit organizations, soup kitchens– it’s not hard to find lawyers and their counterparts right there in the thick of things. As they should be.

It’s also more common than one might think that lawyers do a lot of pro bono professional work. Ditto for accountants who advise charities, architects who design for Habitat for Humanity, and musicians who spend their weekends prepping the high school band for the finals.

Yet the gift horse still gets looked in the mouth. Judges, right up to and including the Chief Justice, delight in haranguing lawyers to give still more, to take on more cases for free. On top of this, the Legal Aid compensation scale across Canada is shameful– by the time the lawyer has paid staff and rent and equipment and memberships and insurance, the take-home is not much above minimum wage.

Those that lecture self-employed professionals to turn their pockets inside out are not self-employed professionals. They’re academics, judges, journalists, and politicians. Unlike self-employed professionals, these folks have a guaranteed take-home, paid vacation, pension plans, gold-plated health and dental, and a generous entertainment allowance.

What never factors into the finger-wagging is that the professional doesn’t get paid when the crank isn’t turning. If I take on a pro bono file and it takes up fifty hours of my time, that’s fifty hours that don’t go to paying staff, keeping the doors open, contributing to my retirement fund, or any of the other things the finger-waggers take for granted.

Perhaps the biggest and most insulting disincentive is that professional time given away to a charity generates no tax break. Not a nickel. If I spend twenty hours on billable files and give the proceeds to charity, I get a tax receipt. If I reorganize the charity’s corporate structure for free, no tax break. Same twenty hours, same wear and tear on overhead, but one yields a tax break, and one doesn’t.

Does that make any sense to you?

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