By Clare Pastore

Clare Pastore is Professor of the Practice of Law at USC Gould School of Law and a member of the Los Angeles County Bar’s Professional Responsibility and Ethics Committee. The views expressed in this article are her own.

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It has long been a truism of the legal profession that lawyers should engage in work “pro bono publico” or for the public good. Scholars have traced the origins of pro bono to the Magna Carta (1215) and the Statute of 1495, enacted under Henry VII in England.^[2] While the former contains the famous formulation of equal access to justice (“to no one will we sell, to no one will we refuse or delay, right or justice,”) the latter actually provided for appointment of counsel at no charge in certain cases where litigants could not afford counsel.^[3] As a matter of theory, the idea that lawyers should perform at least some work for the public good without payment has been justified variously by the conception of the law as a learned profession serving the public rather than a mere business, the monopoly on legal practice granted lawyers, and the notion of lawyers as a “governing class” uniquely qualified to ascertain and effectuate the public good.^[4]

Nonetheless, pro bono work has never been mandatory in America, at least outside of relatively infrequent instances of courts imposing appointment of indigent litigants (typically criminal defendants) upon lawyers in individual cases. In the 1990s, there was a flurry of proposals in several states and within the American Bar Association (ABA) to mandate pro bono work by lawyers, but none was ultimately enacted.^[5] Today, although a handful of law schools require some pro bono work as a graduation requirement,^[6] and New York requires completion of 50 hours of pro bono work as a requirement to sit for the bar exam,^[7] no state requires practicing lawyers to perform such work. Rule 6.1 of the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct proclaims that “Every lawyer has a professional responsibility to provide legal services to those unable to pay” but contains no mandate. Instead, “a lawyer should aspire to render at least (50) hours of pro bono publico legal services per year.”^[8]

Despite the lack of a mandate to provide pro bono services, ten states now require attorneys to report the number of pro bono hours they complete, even if that number is zero.^[9] Twenty-six additional states have a voluntary reporting system.^[10]

California has now joined the former list, imposing a new requirement that active attorneys report their pro bono hours annually to the bar, beginning in 2026.^[11] The requirement builds upon Business and Professions Code section 6073, a provision of the State Bar Act added in 2007, which states in part that “It has been the tradition of those learned in the law and licensed to practice law in this state to provide voluntary pro bono legal services to those who cannot afford the help of a lawyer. Every lawyer authorized and privileged to practice law in California is expected to make a contribution.”^[12] Section 6073 goes on to describe ways to fulfill this “ethical commitment,” including by providing financial support to organizations serving low-income persons or measuring a firm’s contributions in the aggregate.^[13] The provision was purely hortatory however, and most lawyers probably had no reason to be aware of it.

The new legislation, by contrast, does impose requirements, albeit still not a mandate to perform pro bono work. Taking the form of two new sections added to Section 6073, the new requirement comes into effect in 2026, when attorneys are required to report pro bono hours completed in 2025. Several aspects of the new mandate are worth highlighting.^[14]

1. Required reporting, not required pro bono work. As noted above, the new statutory requirement is that attorneys report whatever pro bono work they do when they pay their annual dues; there is no requirement that any such work actually be done.^[15]
2. Pro bono services can be rendered to individuals or organizations: “Pro bono legal services” are defined as “providing or enabling the direct delivery of legal services without expectation of compensation” to either an indigent person or to a “charitable, religious, civic, community, governmental, or educational organization” either in addressing the needs of persons of limited means or in furtherance of the organization’s purposes.^[16] An “indigent person” is generally someone who qualifies for certain welfare programs or whose income is 200% or less of the federal poverty threshold,^[17] or approximately $31,000 for one person.
3. Both uncompensated pro bono work and “reduced fee legal services work” must be reported. Reduced fee legal services work is defined as “providing or enabling direct delivery of legal services at a substantially reduced rate affordable to persons of limited means” to either such a person or to the same organizations defined in the pro bono reporting requirement.
4. Uncollectable fees are not countable as pro bono work. The statute specifies that pro bono legal services “does not include legal services written off as bad debts.”^[18]
5. Some lawyers are exempt. The requirement applies only to active licensees, and excludes most nonprofit lawyers, California and federal employees, and anyone whose employer prohibits them from performing pro bono work.^[19]
6. The information reported is confidential and exempt from the California Public Records Act. The statute specifies that while the Bar must retain the information received for at least five years and is authorized to publish “aggregated and anonymized reports” based on attorneys’ reported hours, the information reported is confidential and “shall not be disclosed as a public record” under the California Public Records Act.^[20]
7. Some odd discrepancies exist: As noted above, countable pro bono legal services are limited to those provided to an indigent person, to an organization in matters addressing the needs of persons of limited means, or to matters in furtherance of the organization’s mission,^[21] and these are the countable hours to be reported. But while “reduced fee legal services” are those provided to persons of limited means (not quite indigent),^[22] as well as to the same organizations listed for pro bono work, reportable “reduced fee legal services” can in addition be those provided to a “public law library.”^[23] There is no indication of why services to a law library should count for reduced fee legal services but not for pro bono services.

Another anomaly is that the scope of pro bono work encouraged by the earlier statute, Section 6073, seems broader than that reportable under the new provisions. Section 6073 allows lawyers to make financial contributions in lieu of actually performing services, allows firms to aggregate pro bono services, and specifically mentions “other voluntary public service activities that increase access to justice or improve the law and the legal system.”^[24] The latter presumably includes services on at least some bar committees or such entities as the California Access to Justice Commission. However, none of these activities seem within the scope of countable pro bono work under the new sections.

1. No discipline or administrative actions against attorneys who fail to comply: For those who oppose mandatory reporting of pro bono hours, one of the final provisions of the statute may be the most important. That section specifies that “Failure of a licensee of the State Bar to comply with any of the provisions of this section is not grounds for disciplinary or administrative recourse,”^[25] and also that “The State Bar shall not use any moneys received from the annual license fees collected. . . for any costs associated with this section.”^[26] Together, these two sections seem to signal something less than a robust legislative commitment to enforcing the new requirements.

Ultimately, time will tell whether the new requirement increases pro bono efforts. Although administrative questions about reporting and substantive questions about the value of a reporting requirement remain, all attorneys need to be aware of the new mandate.

Footnotes

1. Clare Pastore is Professor of the Practice of Law at USC Gould School of Law and a member of the Los Angeles County Bar’s Professional Responsibility and Ethics Committee. The views expressed in this article are her own. ↩
2. See, e.g., Jeremy Mille and Vallori Hard, “Pro Bono: Historical Analysis and a Case Study,” 21 West. St. Univ. L. Rev. 483 (1994). ↩
3. Id. at 484. ↩
4. Id.; see also Russell Pearce, “The Lawyer and Public Service,” 9 Journal of Gender, Social Policy, and the Law 171 (2001). ↩
5. See, e.g., Ronald H. Silverman, “Conceiving a Lawyer’s Legal Duty to the Poor,” 19 Hof. L. Rev. 885 (1991) (discussing New York’s proposal); Rimi Sirota, “Making CLE Voluntary and Pro Bono Mandatory,: A Law Faculty Test Case,” 78 La. Law Rev. 547 (2018) (discussing arguments for and against mandatory pro bono). ↩
6. Pro Bono Institute, “The Power of Law Firms and Law Schools Working Together on Pro Bono” (May 28, 2024), available at https://www.probonoinst.org/2024/05/28/the-power-of-law-firms-and-law-schools-working-together-on-pro-bono/. ↩
7. See NewYorkCourts.gov, “Bar Admission Requirements,” available at https://ww2.nycourts.gov/attorneys/probono/baradmissionreqs.shtml. ↩
8. ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct, Rule 6.1 (emphasis added). ↩
9. See ABA, Standing Committee on Pro Bono and Public Service, “Pro Bono Reporting,” available at https://www.americanbar.org/groups/probono_public_service/policy/arguments/. ↩
10. Id. ↩
11. Bus. & Prof. Code § 6073.2(b). ↩
12. Bus. & Prof. Code § 6073. ↩
13. Id. ↩
14. Some of these are discussed in a “Frequently Asked Questions: Mandatory Pro Bono Reporting” memo issued by the State Bar in March 2025 and available on its website at https://www.calbar.ca.gov/Portals/0/documents/accessJustice/Mandatory-Pro-Bono-Hours-Reporting-FAQ.pdf. ↩
15. See, e.g., Bus. & Prof. Code § 6073.2(a) (“every lawyer should aspire to fulfill their individual commitment to provide pro bono legal services each year and contribute financially to California legal aid organizations.”) (emphasis added). ↩
16. Bus. & Prof. Code 6073.1(c ). ↩
17. Bus. & Prof. Code § 6073.1(c )(1), referencing Bus. & Prof. Code § 6213. ↩
18. Bus. & Prof. Code § 6073.1(c )(2). ↩
19. Bus. & Prof. Code § 6073.2(d). ↩
20. Bus. & Prof. Code § 6073.2(f). ↩
21. Bus. & Prof. Code §§ 6073.1(c ) (defining pro bono legal services); 6073.2(b)(1) (reporting requirement). ↩
22. Bus. & Prof. Code § 6073.1b, referencing definitions from the state Department of Housing and Community Development’s “Official State Income Limits.” ↩
23. Bus. & Prof. Code § 6073.2(b)(2). ↩
24. Bus. & Prof. Code § 6073. ↩
25. Bus. & Prof. Code § 6073.2(g). ↩
26. Bus. & Prof. Code § 6073.2(h). ↩