It's not unusual to see lawyers from Blake, Cassels and Graydon head to Small Claims Court to give free advice to unrepresented litigants, or fly to Botswana to interview rape victims, part of a global campaign to end the violent spread of AIDS.

They don't get paid, but their efforts earned recognition for their law firm, which was honoured this week at a national pro bono conference in Vancouver.

Two years ago, another blue-chip giant, McCarthy Tétrault, picked up an award from conference organizers for donating $1.2 million in pro bono services, performed by 192 of its lawyers,

On one level, the awards show major law firms have come a long way in the six years since steps were first taken to organize and promote pro bono work by Canada's legal profession – even if lawyers taking pro bono cases are sometimes in the minority at Bay St. firms.

"Donating a couple of million dollars a year of your professional time is not to be sneezed at, when you could be making 2 million bucks on (these cases)," said Paul Schabas, who chairs the pro bono committee at Blake, Cassels. Still, when it comes to lawyers working free, Canada is considerably behind the United States, where organizations promoting pro bono have been in place longer, said Schabas, whose firm also acts for the Star.

"There's been a pro bono ethos around in the U.S. for a long time, in part because we do a far poorer job than Canada in funding" legal aid programs, said Esther Lardent, president of the Pro Bono Institute in Washington, D.C., a non-profit organization set up in 1996 to find new ways to provide legal services to the poor.

Every year it runs a "pro bono challenge," encouraging large law firms – 50 or more lawyers – to devote the equivalent of 3 to 5 per cent of their billings to pro bono work.

In 2007, 140 firms took part in the challenge and donated 4.4 million hours – the equivalent of $12.5 million worth of pro bono work at $400 an hour from every firm.

As far back as 1872 lawyers in New York formed a society to offer pro bono services to the needy. But it wasn't until 2002 that Pro Bono Law Ontario – a non-profit organization that matches lawyers with pro bono projects – opened.