WASHINGTON, D.C. – Pro Bono Institute (PBI) is proud to present Susan Hackett, CEO (retired), Legal Executive Leadership, LLC, with the 2026 President’s Award in recognition of her outstanding contributions to PBI, including playing a vital part in establishing the Corporate Pro Bono (CPBO) project with PBI.
“It’s an honor to recognize Susan for her years of contributions to PBI and the CPBO project,” said Eve Runyon, PBI President and CEO. “In her engagement with corporate legal executives, she successfully promoted the message that in-house pro bono is valuable for companies and the community. This impact is felt today, as in-house pro bono continues to grow, innovate, and collaborate with law firms and legal services partners.”
“Nothing has given me more satisfaction in my career than working with the pro bono and access to justice communities,” said Susan Hackett, CEO (retired), Legal Executive Leadership, LLC. “PBI, and through it, the corporate law department/CPBO project on which we partnered, was my first and proved to be the most enduring work I’ve had the honor to do in the field. I cannot emphasize enough how important PBI’s work is, and how critical the contributions of its many stakeholders are. I am honored to have been part of the movement bringing law departments into PBI’s and the access to justice community.”
Susan spent 22 years at the Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC) as the organization’s General Counsel and Intrapreneur. When she left in 2011 to form her own consulting practice, Legal Executive Leadership, LLC (LEL), her goal was to specialize in helping legal departments — and the law firms and other legal service providers who support them — re-think and re-engineer the way they work.
While at both ACC and LEL, Susan guided hundreds of corporate law departments through strategic change processes, encouraging them to explore how they could provide greater value to their clients and their communities. By helping her clients leverage leadership, operations, data, and technology, Susan enabled corporate legal executives to deliver measurable results, improve collaboration, and better serve both their stakeholders, their professional responsibilities, and the justice system.
Susan also played a vital role in launching the CPBO project with PBI in 2000 to develop and transform in-house pro bono. Her leadership and trusted, longstanding connections with legal teams and general counsel helped to inform in-house leaders about the business benefits of pro bono, such as enhancing job fulfillment, bringing teams together, boosting morale, and offering professional development experiences that cannot be replicated in day-to-day work. Susan successfully delivered the message that pro bono participation also elevates companies’ profiles, strengthens community relationships, and reinforces corporate commitments to social responsibility and ethical leadership.
The foundation laid by Susan, PBI, and other leaders has resulted in more than 1,000 legal departments receiving expert services from the CPBO project to develop and enhance in-house pro bono programs and the establishment of the CPBO Challenge® initiative, which has become the standard benchmark for in-house pro bono and has fostered tremendous growth in pro bono among in-house counsel. The CPBO project also has led initiatives and provided guidance and resources to overcome barriers to increasing in-house pro bono to address the access to justice crisis, such as reforming multijurisdictional practice restrictions that prohibited in-house pro bono engagement.
Learn more about Susan’s in-house pro bono leadership.
About the PBI President’s Award
The award is given to an individual or organization that has provided extraordinary contributions to PBI’s work, in addition to unequaled thought and action leadership to pro bono in the legal community.
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About Pro Bono Institute
Founded in 1996, Pro Bono Institute (PBI) is a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit organization. With an unparalleled depth of knowledge, resources and expertise, PBI is the respected resource for all things pro bono. Through our work with law firms, in-house corporate legal departments, and public interest organizations, PBI is the global thought leader in exploring, identifying, evaluating, catalyzing, and taking to scale new approaches to and resources for the provision of legal services to the poor, disadvantaged, and other individuals or groups unable to secure legal assistance to address critical problems.