england-and-wales
Were the barristers for May Donoghue (before the Judicial Commitee of the House of Lords) pro bono or paid?
<p><sub>Source: p 127, <em>Is Eating People Wrong? Great Legal Cases and How They Shaped the World</em> (2011) by Allan C. Hutchinson</sub></p>

<blockquote>
  <p>  Undaunted, Leechman made the final maneuver available
  to May – he applied for leave to appeal to the Judicial
  Committee of the House of Lords, the highest court of appeal for all cases in the United Kingdom, including Scottish cases.
  Her petition to appeal in forma pauperis was presented on
  February 26, 1931, and granted on March 17, 1931. All was
  now set for the final showdown in which there was much
  more at stake than the commercial relations between gingerbeer
  manufacturers and their clients.<br>
    [Glaswegian Solicitor Walter] Leechman, but not May, traveled down to London to listen
  to arguments in December 1931. As was and remains the
  custom, local lawyers brief more senior counsel on such occasions.
  May was represented by <strong>George Morton (king’s counsel)
  and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Rankine_Milligan,_Lord_Milligan" rel="nofollow">W[illiam] R. Milligan</a></strong>, who was later to become Scotland’s
  lord advocate.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>The source above, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donoghue_v_Stevenson#House_of_Lords" rel="nofollow">Wikipedia</a> and <a href="http://www.scottishlawreports.org.uk/resources/dvs/mrs-donoghue-journey.html" rel="nofollow"><em>MRS. DONOGHUE’s JOURNEY</em><sup>1</sup> by 
Martin R. Taylor QC</a> 
all state that Solicitor Walter Leechman (altruistically, benevolently) acted freely to represent May Donoghue; but they do not clarify whether the two barristers (bolded above) were paid or pro bono? </p>

<p><sup>1</sup><sub>Originally published in <em>Donoghue v Stevenson and the Modern Law of Negligence</em>, Continuing Legal Education Society of British Columbia, 1991</sub></p>

<p>You have your answer already in the quotation you give.</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>Her petition to appeal in forma pauperis was presented on February 26,
  1931, and granted on March 17, 1931</p>
</blockquote>

<p>At that time the Appeals (Forma Pauperis) Act 1893 (56 &amp; 57 Vict c 22) was in force. This created a limited form of legal assistance for paupers that paid for, amongst other things, counsel to appear before the House of Lords on appeal.</p>

<p>See the <a href="http://www.scottishlawreports.org.uk/resources/dvs/page-images/pages/Die-Jovis-26-Maii-1932.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">costs order</a> made by the House of Lords on remitting the case.</p>

<p>I am fairly certain you will not find a definite answer to this: I recall hearing a High Court Judge rule that the question whether a barrister was acting <em>pro bono</em> was not permissible in court except on questions of costs.</p>

<p>However you should consider that until reforms in the 1990s, conditional fee agreements ('no win no fee') were strictly banned in England and Wales, under the rules for champerty and maintenance; and that Mrs May had sworn that she was unable to pay a solicitor, let alone two senior KCs.</p>

<p>(I have answered for England and Wales, since that is the tag, but it appears that actually the House of Lords was applying Scottish law: I have no reason to suppose there was any difference.)</p>
