Yury Schmidt told Ekho Moskvy radio that Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who turned 45 on Thursday, said he "would think about it."
However, the lawyer said that Khodorkovsky, who has served almost half of his eight-year sentence for tax evasion and fraud but is now awaiting trial on a new set of charges, "would not be freed at once" because the new investigation had not been completed.
The latest charges against Khodorkovsky and his business partner Platon Lebedev, also in prison on similar charges, include stealing government shares, illegal oil trading, and laundering $25 billion earned from oil sales in 1998-2004.
Earlier this week, the Russian daily Vedomosti reported that Khodorkovsky could be freed next year if Russia's parliament approves a bill to review sentencing as part of a move to cut the prison population.
The former oil tycoon could be set free along with 50,000 other Russian inmates if the State Duma passes a senior lawmaker's proposal to count a day on remand, or pretrial custody, as equivalent to 1.5 or two days in prison. The former oil tycoon's press service said he spent 3.5 years on remand prior to trial.
When President Dmitry Medvedev was inaugurated last month, human rights activists sent him an open letter expressing the hope that Khodorkovsky would be eventually pardoned.
