Are you sure about that? I did some computer work for a local charity. I did it voluntarily, but the Administrator asked me my hourly rate for this type of work and asked me to punch in and out. When I completed my work, she presented me with a form that listed my hours and my hourly rate and the work that I did. She told me that the reciept was so that I could submit my the value of my time as a charitable contribution on my income taxes. I don’t itemize so it wasn’t needed, but she said that this was done all of the time and it has never been questioned.

Jim, you can’t get a tax deduction for donating services — only money or tangible goods. (Presumably because it would be too easy to manipulate the donation of services.) Of course, what they’ll sometimes do is donate their court-awarded fees to charity and take the deduction that way.

Liptak wrote, “That is, for better or worse, how real-life pro bono works.” No, that’s not really how pro bono works. Work on a contingency is not pro bono.

The big problem with paying lawyers according to what they would get on the open market is that, by the time the court is deciding what they should be paid, they have already won the case (because the winner doesn’t have to pay the loser’s fees). So the “market price” for legal services is the amount a reasonable client would pay for assured victory, which is likely substantially more than they would be willing to pay for the chance of winning.

I’ve written a little more about the Arbor Hill case here.

Mark Bennett
Defending People Blog

http://www.city-journal.org/html/10_2_what_good_is_pro_bono.html

Societal goals? Why, what would those be? And shouldn’t those pressing for “societal goals” be somehow connected to something democratically accountable? Oh, silly me. If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. Conservative public interest law, rock on.