The impact of the economic downturn is being felt not only in the revenues of large law firms but also in profound – and possibly long-term changes – in the nature of law firm practice. As readers of the Wire are well aware, the downturn in client demand for legal work has led to major firms placing hundreds of underutilized lawyers and deferred incoming associates in “pro bono fellowships” for periods of three months to one year. A second trend, unrelated to pro bono, has been the dramatic increase in commercial secondments, in which firms detail lawyers to work, for a period of time, in the legal departments of their corporate clients. These secondments, in an increasingly competitive environment, enable firms to make good use of less-than-busy lawyers, while learning more about and strengthening relationships with key clients.
The article below details an innovative model that is a blend of these two trends – a firm that has seconded its attorneys to the legal department of a major client to work on enhancing that client’s pro bono infrastructure and practice. Time will tell whether this model is fully replicable, but several other law firm/legal department “pro bono secondments” are currently in place or under consideration. Please see the story below, provided by Allen & Overy LLP and General Electric.
Where There’s Good Will There’s a Way
Printed with permission from Allen & Overy LLP and General Electric
GE’s in-house legal team, with over 1,000 lawyers across the world, represents a sizeable law firm in itself. The size of GE’s legal team, combined with its presence around the world, creates enormous potential for making an impact through pro bono work. But even with strong encouragement from the very top, in-house legal teams face many challenges in developing an effective pro bono programme.
GE’s way of addressing these challenges was to call upon one of its closest legal advisers, Allen & Overy, for help. “GE has a long and rich history of doing pro bono work in the US, but we did not have an established pro bono programme in Europe. It made sense to look to a law firm that has genuine expertise in this area”, says Alexandra Turton, GE’s Senior L&E Counsel in EMEA. “Allen & Overy has a very highly-regarded international pro bono programme, so we asked them to put their expertise to good use and help us develop our own programme.”
Allen & Overy New York partner, Ken Rivlin, initiated work with GE’s team in the US to provide advice on how to find suitable pro bono projects. In order to develop an effective, joined-up programme that used GE lawyers’ skills to best effect, it became clear that a strategic approach and deep collective commitment from both GE and Allen & Overy would be needed.
In particular, while GE’s General Counsel, Brackett Dennison, had strongly endorsed pro bono work, and signed GE up to the Pro Bono Institute’s Corporate Pro Bono ChallengeSM in the US, his sizeable team of lawyers in Europe wanted guidance on how to get started.
Allen & Overy’s response was to send a senior lawyer to GE for six months to help set up a programme of pro bono activities. So, at the start of 2008, charities expert Louise Zekaria took up residence in GE’s in-house legal team.
During the secondment, Louise focused on identifying suitable pro bono projects for GE lawyers to work on. Louise talked to staff to find out their interests and then worked with NGOs to understand the local communities’ needs. But, importantly, Louise helped GE to start putting in place an infrastructure that would support the programme as it developed and would allow it to manage its activities going forward.
The secondment worked so successfully for GE that when Louise’s six months came to an end, Allen & Overy sent another lawyer, Lisa Meyer, to GE’s in-house team for a further three months.
Among the pro bono opportunities identified for GE lawyers was the chance to work with their counterparts at Allen & Overy on collaborative pro bono activities. For example, lawyers from GE and Allen & Overy in Budapest delivered a number of legal seminars to Hungarian NGOs on all aspects of employment law. In London, Allen & Overy worked with GE lawyers and charity The Brokerage Citylink to set up an employability workshop for students from deprived backgrounds.
“Whilst the programme is still a work in progress across Europe, tremendous progress has been made within the first year of the initiative to establish this as a meaningful and sustained programme going forward. This would not have been possible without the support and investment from A&O,” says Alexandra Turton of GE.
An unpaid nine-month secondment is a big commitment for a law firm to make to a client. But Allen & Overy felt that, in addition to helping build stronger relationships with an important client, it was a natural extension of its own pro bono programme. “This was a first for us,” says Shankari Chandran, who heads Allen & Overy’s pro bono team. “But it was a really powerful way to put our experience in this area to good use to help a client develop its own pro bono programme.”
The secondment was a huge success for both the law firm and corporate legal department. In addition to providing advice in New York, Allen & Overy helped GE to identify pro bono opportunities across 13 European countries and, importantly, passed on knowledge and learning so that GE could continue to develop its own pro bono programme. GE has recently won an award for one of its projects in New York.
Do’s and Don’ts for Making a Pro Bono Secondment in a Client Organisation Work
• DON’T underestimate the commitment required on both sides for the secondment to work – it is not as simple as replicating a law firm’s pro bono model in an in-house team.
• DO ensure time is spent understanding the organisation’s business, its culture, its structure, the personalities involved and how decisions are made. Importantly, DO understand that the role in-house lawyers play within a business like GE is very different from the role lawyer’s play in a law firm.
• DO expect to start from first principles and be able to sell the basic concepts: what is pro bono; can in-house lawyers get involved and in what ways; what are the benefits and reasons for doing it?
• DO manage expectations about what can be achieved and in what time frame – always assume it will be harder and take longer than you expect.
• DO know your client. Allen & Overy developed projects that were right for GE’s business and its lawyers’ workloads. DO work with brokers to develop simple non-threatening pro bono projects because, while in-house lawyers don’t have billable hours targets, they certainly have other onerous time constraints. Getting the first projects right is crucial.
Fundamentally, this is not something that either a law firm or client should undertake lightly. For the secondment to work there needs to be a significant commitment from the secondee, along with strong support from the rest of the firm (Allen & Overy provided support to its secondee from New York and London). It also requires a commitment from the client to provide the time and resources to implement the programme.
But, if it is done well, there is an opportunity to build stronger relationships between clients and their legal advisers, and there is the potential to combine the skills, expertise, resources and enthusiasm from both sides to achieve really powerful results.
We are grateful for the assistance provided by Jane Foley, Corporate Communications Manager, Allen & Overy LLP.
Developed by Corporate Pro Bono
A global partnership project of the Pro Bono Institute and the Association of Corporate Counsel
www.cpbo.org