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.

中文翻译：

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当利他主义得到报酬时：理解律师志愿公共服务的基础

法律界声称有一项公共服务义务，即呼吁律师通过“无偿”工作（即免费法律服务）自愿贡献自己的时间。越来越多的律师事务所强烈支持无偿甚至为免费提供给客户的时间提供报酬。但是，当律师事务所强制要求无偿提供甚至获得补偿时会发生什么？利他主义被削弱了吗？根据对 845 名律师的调查，我们开发了一个综合理论模型来解释志愿服务在法律工作过程中是如何发生的。分析揭示了心理特征、集体规范、经济交流和组织维度以有趣的方式塑造了律师的公益性工作，当公益性由公司提供报酬时，会出现明显的区别。众所周知，促进利他行为的集体规范似乎与工作之外的公益（即无偿）最为相关，而组织支持和约束以及经济交换因素似乎与公司内部有偿的公益最为显着。我们认为，公益工作理论需要对促进跨多个维度的帮助行为的力量进行更精细的理解：是否提供帮助、提供多少帮助以及有无补偿。