Pro bono

The firm currently has about half a dozen pro bono cases at any one time.

After he retired, he offered representation pro bono from time to time.

Esther Lardent, chief consultant to the ABA's Post Conviction Death Penalty Representation Project, which has helped recruit pro bono lawyers for death row appeals since 1987, begs to differ. Finding a lawyer to represent a death row inmate has never been easy, Lardent says. And finding one now, she says, will be harder than ever.

While the media sneerocracy only came round to Oliver because of his pro bono project, the huge number of people buying his books and wheeling their Sainsbury's trolleys in his wake had already responded to his charisma.