Kim Kerker, Author at Pro Bono Institute

Transforming Transactional Pro Bono

December 19, 2018

With its eighth annual Clinic in a Box® program this month, the “dream team” of the Association of Corporate Counsel Northeast Chapter (ACC-Northeast), Mintz Levin Cohn Ferris Glovsky and Popeo*†, and The Lawyers Clearinghouse, in partnership with Corporate Pro Bono (CPBO), have transformed transactional pro bono opportunities for in-house counsel in the Boston Area and made easier some common challenges of engaging corporate lawyers in pro bono. For many years, the partnership hosted an annual Clinic in a Box® program – Legal Audit, CPBO’s licensed off-the-shelf model designed to provide in-house counsel the opportunity to advise nonprofit organizations or small

Gifts That Keep On Giving

December 11, 2018

Happy Holidays! Finding the perfect gift for that special someone can be quite the obstacle. Fortunately, PBI is here to help once again with gift ideas that give back to those in need. Need a gift for your favorite athlete or sneaker head? Check out Bombas Socks. After learning that socks are the most requested clothing items at shelters, Bombas knew they wanted to do something for their community. For every pair of socks purchased, the company donates a specially engineered pair of socks to someone in need; to date, they have donated more than 12 million pairs. Making sure we treat our body with the

Dentsu Aegis Network Takes Pro Bono Beyond the Legal Department

November 14, 2018

There has been growing interest among legal departments in collaborating with colleagues beyond the legal department in their pro bono efforts. Some departments want to increase impact by broadening participation by their colleagues outside the department and demonstrate the value of pro bono for their companies. Other legal departments seek to deepen their pro bono program by aligning pro bono work with wider company priorities and leveraging skills and expertise across the company to tackle critical access to justice issues. We invited Miri Miller, Associate General Counsel and global pro bono program lead at Dentsu Aegis Network**, to share how

Legal Assistance for the Opioid Crisis

November 1, 2018

Opioids are a class of drugs used to reduce pain, ranging from prescription opioids such as oxycodone and morphine, to illegal opioids such as heroin. In the 1990s, healthcare providers began prescribing opioid pain relievers at increased rates, leading to the widespread misuse of prescription and non-prescription opioids. This resulted in a spike in addiction, amounting to 350,000 deaths between 1999 and 2016 from an overdose involving opioids. In 2017, the Health and Human Services (HHS) Acting Secretary declared a public health emergency to address this epidemic. Because of the alarming number of overdoses, efforts to mitigate the epidemic tend

A Conversation with Annie Helms — Rolling Meadows Domestic Violence Help Desk

October 18, 2018

In 2016, the Rolling Meadows Help Desk was created when a group of lawyers at Allstate**, Discover**, DLA Piper*†, and Illinois Tool Works united to help a local nonprofit organization, Between Friends, assist domestic violence survivors at the Rolling Meadows Courthouse. The courthouse is located 25 miles outside Chicago in suburban Cook County, Illinois. With the expert training and support of LAF, lawyers from each of the partner organizations regularly staff four-hour shifts in the Between Friends office, helping victims fill out paperwork, explaining the court process, and ensuring that no survivor goes through the process of obtaining a protective

Celebrate Pro Bono Week! Now Keep Up the Momentum Year Round

October 9, 2018

This month, the American Bar Association (ABA) will mark the 10th Annual National Celebration of Pro Bono on October 21 – 27, 2018. The event is not only an occasion to celebrate the efforts of pro bono volunteers but also a week to inspire, educate, and train members of the private bar on the importance of their contribution to closing the justice gap. This year, the ABA’s national celebration has a special focus on disaster resiliency – a particularly salient topic one year after Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Maria, and one month after Hurricane Florence. This year’s focal point is

Pro Bono and the Death of the Billable Hour

September 27, 2018

How should we treat our pro bono hours? Traditionally, as an incentive and motivator for attorneys to participate in pro bono, the gold standard was for law firms to treat time spent on pro bono matters the same as time spent on billable matters. At firms with billable hour requirements, pro bono matters would count towards reaching hourly goals. However, we have recently seen a trend of firms of moving away from the billable hour as a tool to evaluate performance of attorneys by either minimizing their importance or doing away with billable hours altogether. For firms that are distancing

PBI Applauds Kansas’s New Rule Permitting Registered In-House Counsel to Practice Pro Bono

September 19, 2018

On September 6, 2018, the Kansas Supreme Court lifted the prohibition against non-locally licensed in-house counsel providing pro bono legal services. The amendment to Kansas Supreme Court Rule 712 will permit the approximately 200 registered in-house counsel in Kansas to provide legal aid to low-income individuals and communities. Last year, 10,000 legal aid requests went unfulfilled by Kansas Legal Services due to lack of staff capacity. The new rule will allow more attorneys in the private bar to deliver much needed legal services to the underserved. Pro Bono Institute (PBI) congratulates the many in-house counsel and their partners who advocated

Capital One Invests in Pro Bono for Young Adults’ Financial Health

September 13, 2018

Here at Corporate Pro Bono, we see in-house departments select pro bono projects for many different reasons. Some choose pro bono engagements related to their company’s business priorities. Others choose projects that intersect with their companies’ Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) goals. And some legal departments develop pro bono initiatives that support both the corporate mission and its CSR objectives. Capital One®** developed the Identity Theft Clinic, a signature pro bono project, that not only augments the company’s business of delivering financial products and services to customers, but also supports its Future Edge® initiative that helps people at all stages of

Doing Pro Bono to Preserve Democracy

September 6, 2018

With the 2018 midterm elections around the corner, an added spotlight is placed on ensuring the right to vote in jurisdictions across the United States, and pro bono lawyers have played a unique role in protecting the right to vote for individuals and marginalized communities. In the last seven years, dozens of states have adopted a range of laws that impact voting. In 2017, legislatures in Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Montana, and North Dakota passed laws that impose voter ID requirements, purge voters, and limit voter registration drives. Opponents of these regulations argue that they have a disproportionate impact on

Author: Kim Kerker