The Pro Bono Institute would like to thank the amazing number of law firms and corporate legal departments who have stepped forward to volunteer to provide pro bono legal services to veterans as part of a national project administered by the National Veterans Legal Services Project, the American Legion, and other veterans groups.  The details regarding the infrastructure of the volunteer representation project are being finalized and will be disseminated later this month.

Please welcome the two newest Corporate Pro Bono Challenge℠ Signatories: PETCO Animal Supplies, Inc. and ARS National Services, Inc. The legal departments of these companies have become the latest corporate legal departments to sign onto the Corporate Pro Bono Challenge℠, developed by Corporate Pro Bono (CPBO), a joint initiative of the Association of Corporate Counsel and the Pro Bono Institute. The Corporate Challenge℠ is designed to empower corporate legal departments to identify, benchmark, and communicate their commitment to pro bono service. As part of the Corporate Challenge℠, Chief Legal Officers encourage and promote pro bono service by their legal department staff and use their best efforts to encourage at least one-half of their legal staff to support and participate in pro bono service. In addition, Chief Legal Officers encourage outside law firms with whom they work to acknowledge publicly their support for pro bono by becoming signatories to the Pro Bono Institute’s Law Firm Pro Bono Challenge®. To view the full text of the Corporate Challenge℠ or to find the complete list of Corporate Challenge℠ Signatories, visit www.cpbo.org.

On August 24, 2007, Corporate Pro Bono (CPBO), a national partnership project of the Association of Corporate Counsel and the Pro Bono Institute, hosted its second Onsite Pro Bono Clinic – also known as Clinic in a BoxSM – in Denver, Colorado.  Co-sponsored by the Colorado Chapter of the Association of Corporate Counsel, Hogan & Hartson LLP, the Community Resource Center, and the Colorado Lawyers Committee, the Clinic attracted twenty-six volunteer attorneys, and it was extremely successful in helping to resolve the legal issues of fourteen Denver area nonprofit organizations. 

The Association for Corporate Counsel, PBI’s partner in launching and administering Corporate Pro Bono (CPBO), is the voice of the in-house bar.  Their commitment to pro bono has been demonstrated by the creation and development of CPBO, and, as always, in their support for their employees’ pro bono and community outreach service.  ACC’s Associate General Counsel, Jim Merklinger, recently prevailed in an interesting pro bono immigration matter.

For plenty of good reasons, in-house lawyers generally do not do nearly as much pro bono work as those in law firms, according to Rachel Epps Spears, executive director of the Pro Bono Partnership of Atlanta.

The Corporate Counsel Pro Bono Initiative will host several breakfast and lunch programs across Tennessee.  The first event will be a luncheon held on August 28 in Memphis.  The purpose of the event is to give corporate counsel the opportunity to continue building relationships with local pro bono leaders and to develop local support for and participation in specific pro bono projects for corporate counsel.

An in-house intellectual property lawyer like Michael Hurst at Caterpillar Inc. rarely has the opportunity to do pro bono work. But earlier this year, the Peoria, Illinois-based heavy equipment manufacturer decided to offer free legal services to The Malawi Connection, a Michigan-based charity. When the group needed help trademarking its name and logo, Hurst jumped at the chance to assist.

It wasn’t a typical day in the life of an in-house counsel. Last August, Paulette Solinski passed through the metal doors of Holman Correctional Facility, a maximum security prison in Atmore, Alabama. Then the associate general counsel of Aon Corporation’s brokerage regulation group sat at what looked like an old metal lunch table, and stared into the eyes of her new client, Charlie Washington. He was convicted of killing an elderly couple in 2004, and has been waiting on death row for three years. Solinski was accompanied by her pro bono co-counsel, Eric Mattson, a partner at Sidley Austin.

On June 20, 2007, Bank of America Corporation’s Legal Department launched a pro bono initiative in New York, focusing on unmet local legal needs, and continuing company-wide pro bono efforts initiated in 2005. Showing support for the effort at the highest levels of the company’s legal leadership, Timothy J. Mayopoulos, Bank of America’s General Counsel, and Todd Baskin, Managing Director and Associate General Counsel and Chair of the New York Pro Bono Committee, spoke at the event, as did Pro Bono Institute President and CEO, Esther F. Lardent.  The New York initiative has also received support from Bank of America’s top management.

On June 12, 2007, representatives from corporate legal departments and law firms across Tennessee gathered at Music City Sheraton for the First Annual Corporate Counsel Pro Bono Initiative Reception and Dinner. Sponsored by the Tennessee Bar Association and the Association of Corporate Counsel, the event was designed to raise awareness and money and to demonstrate corporate counsel support for the access to justice community.