Just because a litigant doesn’t incur fees when his or her lawyers work pro bono doesn’t mean a court shouldn’t award them, an appellate panel has ruled.The 1st District Appellate Court ruled a Cook County judge was wrong to deny reasonable attorney fees to winning plaintiffs because their lawyers vowed to work for free and to donate any proceeds.In an unpublished order this week, Justice James Fitzgerald Smith wrote that fee-shifting is mandatory under the state’s Civil Rights Act, a law at the …