[ModelBreaker]

I understand that all lawyers (or least in some states) are required to take so many hours of pro-bono works each year in order to keep their license. They don't always have their choice of clients.

In 25 years practice, I never encountered a pro bono situation that the attorney did not choose. Pro bono is your voluntary, free time and you pick and choose it to do good things. For example, you might help a widow recover her life savings from a con man. Or you might try to advance an important constitutional principle. But attorneys pick and choose the pro bono stuff they work on.

That dog don't hunt.

[You Dirty Rats]

As I understand it, this case wasn't Roberts's case -- it was another partner's case. That other partner asked for help from Roberts. Isn't it perfectly normal for partners to help each other out with their respective areas of expertise, even on pro bono work?

[BikerNYC]

In 25 years practice, I never encountered a pro bono situation that the attorney did not choose.

For solo practitioners, that is clear cut. For a larger firm it isn't. If a firm takes on a pro bono client, and one of the lawyers working directly on the case calls up his partner, who may have particular expertise on an issue, are you saying that partner does not have an ethical obligation to the firm's client and a fiduciary obligation to his partner to assist in the matter?

Does the partner whose help is being requested have the right to ask what kind of client this is - pro bono or fee paying - and base his willingness to help on the answer to that question?