By Alyssa Saunders, Director Corporate Pro Bono
In 2026, the Pro Bono Institute Corporate Pro Bono (CPBO) Challenge® initiative will celebrate its 20th anniversary alongside PBI’s 30 years of advancing access to justice. These milestones are an opportunity to celebrate the growth of in-house pro bono over the years and challenge more legal departments to participate in delivering pro bono legal services to those in need.
Background on the Challenge and In-House Pro Bono
In 2000, PBI founded the CPBO project to develop and transform in-house pro bono. Since then, the CPBO project has worked with more than one thousand legal departments, helping to launch pro bono initiatives and advance tremendous growth in pro bono among in-house counsel.
In 2006, at the urging of chief legal officers, the CPBO project launched an initiative enabling legal departments to identify, benchmark, and communicate their support for pro bono service. The CPBO Challenge is now the standard for in-house pro bono. It is a simple, voluntary statement of commitment to pro bono service by legal departments, their lawyers and staff.
The Challenge sets aspirational goals that are designed to encourage and promote pro bono service throughout a company’s legal department, using a metric that is both easy to track and meaningful to in-house lawyers and departments.
Specifically, the CPBO Challenge statement calls for chief legal officers to:
- encourage and promote pro bono service by their legal department staff;
- use their best efforts to encourage their staff, including at least one-half of their legal staff, to support and participate in pro bono service; and,
- encourage the 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® initiative.
Learn more about the CPBO Challenge here.
Why In-House Pro Bono
General Counsel and Chief Legal Officers support in-house pro bono not only because of the ethical responsibility of attorneys to provide pro bono legal services, but also because it delivers value to the company, the legal department, and employees.
In-house pro bono is an opportunity for legal departments of all sizes and industries to demonstrate leadership, strengthen teams, and deliver meaningful impact in the community. Pro bono enhances job fulfillment, brings teams together, boosts morale, and offers professional development experiences that cannot be replicated in our day-to-day work. Pro bono participation also elevates companies’ profiles, strengthens community relationships, and reinforces corporate commitments to social responsibility and ethical leadership.
Learn more about the reasons why in-house leaders do pro bono in the CPBO project’s Why Do Pro Bono infographic and The Business Case for In-House Pro Bono resource.
The Impactful Work of Challenge Signatories
We are grateful for the 20 years of dedication to pro bono service demonstrated by nearly 200 CPBO Challenge signatories and other legal departments that run pro bono programs for their lawyers and legal staff.
Thousands of in-house volunteers have provided pro bono service to address legal needs across the United States and around the world. They have participated in a wide range of subject matter areas, including brief advice, litigation, transactional, legal research, and advocacy opportunities. In-house volunteers provide legal support to low-income clients, including youth, seniors, and veterans, as well as legal support for nonprofit organizations, small businesses, and micro-entrepreneurs.
For more inspiring stories of in-house pro bono and examples of the incredible work accomplished by both Law Firm and CPBO Challenge Signatories, check out the PBI Signatory Showcase. This series spotlights diverse, impactful, and replicable pro bono work. Recent showcases featuring CPBO Challenge signatories highlight a project to help children in foster care find permanent homes through adoption and legal guardianship, and a project to support veterans seeking discharge upgrades.
Join us for the CPBO Challenge Anniversary
PBI and the CPBO project congratulate CPBO Challenge signatories and in-house pro bono champions and invite you to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Challenge with us in 2026. You can do this by continuing your commitment to pro bono and access to justice. We also invite you to join the PBI 2026 Annual Conference, where we will celebrate the 20th anniversary of the CPBO Challenge initiative and highlight the corporate community’s commitment to pro bono.
If your department is not already a signatory, we encourage you to participate! Departments of any size, industry, and location can join. GCs and CLOs can sign on to the Corporate Pro Bono Challenge initiative here.
If you have questions about the Challenge or need support for your in-house pro bono program, please contact the CPBO project. Staff are available to provide confidential, tailored assistance to help departments launch and grow their pro bono programs.
Finally, in honor of the 20th anniversary of the CPBO Challenge, we invite you to share your reflections and experiences with in-house pro bono service — whether it’s a memorable pro bono project, a successful partnership, or a note about how the CPBO project has supported your pro bono journey. Please send your reflections to CPBO staff with the Subject Line “Challenge Anniversary” or tag us on LinkedIn with the hashtag #CPBOChallenge20.