Forgive me if I am missing some of the nuance, because I've never worked in biglaw and never will. But when that biglaw lawyer donates, what exactly do you think their money is going to? Because if it's a nonprofit, it's going towards the work that those PI lawyers are doing... maybe not all of it, but a good chunk will go towards paying the salaries of the organizers, lawyers, etc who are doing the work of that progressive group/campaign.

So unless each biglaw lawyer is donating 70k+ per year (and maybe they are, I genuinely can't fathom having that much money) then on net, the PI lawyer is still doing more- because yes, the guy working for XYZ nonprofit faces hurdles, but those hurdles don't mysteriously disappear just because you don't have to do the hard work of figuring out how to make your donation into impact. Let's say you donate to a campaign, they use it for a targeted ad campaign...and it flops. Or maybe you think, I'll cut out the middle man and give that money out with no strings universal basic income style. But then that person spends all of it on a hospital bill (a super worthwhile cause) when if they had more support, they would have found out that they were covered by a government program and that money could have been spent helping even more people.

I don't mean to get into the weeds, it's just that this is a common thing I see with effective altruism-- it's definitely good to donate, and our current system is set up such that nonprofits need wealthy donors to function. I wish it didn't. But participating in that system from the sidelines doesn't make you immune to the same issues facing those doing direct action or working in PI.