Kim Kerker, Author at Pro Bono Institute

2022 National Celebration of Pro Bono

October 18, 2022

by Cynthia Montoya, PBI Intern With Pro Bono Week right around the corner, now is a great time to solidify longstanding partnerships and make new connections that can inspire pro bono throughout the year! On October 23-29, 2022, the legal community will come together to participate in the American Bar Association (ABA) National Celebration of Pro Bono. The programs and events planned during this week present a great way to get involved in the community, meet new colleagues, and give back through pro bono service. The annual celebration highlights the hard work of legal staff, law students, and lawyers partaking in impactful pro

1.9 million and counting: An Immigration Update & Pro Bono Opportunities

September 19, 2022

By Noor Khan, PBI Intern In the fiscal year 2022, there were 1,917,464 active immigration court cases backlogged in the United States, the largest in this country’s history. This backlog includes most of the new deportation cases of 2022 (in the first two months of 2022 alone there were 310,658 proceedings filed in the United States). Through a combination of immigration court closures, shutdowns of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) offices, and the implementation of Title 42 which permits expulsion of many asylum seekers to Mexico, many of these cases can be attributed to the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. Immigration case backlogs leave individuals in a state of

Ghostwriting Can Increase Pro Bono and Expand Access to Justice

August 11, 2022

By Kelsey Hunt, PBI Law Clerk Ghostwriting is a form of limited scope representation that allows attorneys to draft or assist in drafting a pleading, motion, or other document filed by a pro se party without entering an appearance or engaging in formal representation. Many low- and modest-income parties litigate pro se because they cannot afford the high price of full-scale representation. Ghostwriting increases their access to justice by allowing them to receive some legal assistance and more effectively advocate their position during litigation. Ghostwriting can also expand pro bono work by providing meaningful opportunities for attorneys seeking to do pro bono.

2022 FIPBD: Impact Around the Globe

July 14, 2022

The third annual Financial Institution Pro Bono Day (FIPBD) was the biggest yet and provided pro bono services across the globe! FIPBD was organized by Corporate Pro Bono (CPBO®), a project of Pro Bono Institute® (PBI), to spotlight the severe gap in legal services for underserved individuals and promote in-house pro bono collaboration in partnership with law firms and legal services organizations. On the day of service, April 28, 2022, more than 1100 in-house volunteers from 35 financial institutions participated. The FIPBD partners organized both virtual and in-person pro bono events that addressed diverse issues ranging from homelessness to transgender name changes,

Corporate Pro Bono Publishes New Metrics Resource

June 29, 2022

Metrics pose a perennial challenge for tracking in-house legal departments’ pro bono programs. To assist departments, PBI’s Corporate Pro Bono project (CPBO) recently published the Corporate Pro Bono Metrics Guide as part of its continuing development of effective tools for measurement and assessment of in-house pro bono. Capturing metrics can enable a pro bono program to convey the value and importance of pro bono to volunteers, the institutions for which they work, and the individuals and communities being served. Regular and ongoing assessments of in-house pro bono practice provide a way to evaluate and improve the legal services delivered as well

CPBO Organizes GCs and CLOs to Support LSC Funding

May 19, 2022

by Noor Khan, PBI Intern For the sixth year in a row, legal department leaders are speaking out to support increased funding of the Legal Services Corporation (LSC), the largest funder of civil legal aid in the United States. Pro Bono Institute® (PBI®) and its global in-house project, Corporate Pro Bono® (CPBO®), worked in partnership with the National Legal Aid & Defender Association (NLADA) to invite General Counsel and Chief Legal Officers to sign a letter asking Congress to approve $700 million in funding for LSC for Fiscal Year 2023. A notable group of 162 GCs and CLOs signed a letter

Homelessness & Housing Justice

March 29, 2022

by PBI intern Isabella Brill Last month when the Super Bowl was held at the SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles, a sudden move to shut down a nearby homeless encampment focused the public’s attention on a longstanding issue — homelessness. In the past year, homelessness has become an important topic amongst state and city leaders in Los Angeles, where the population has increased to over sixty thousand people in Los Angeles County. This estimate includes people that are unhoused and live amongst the street. However, it could be much larger due to the difficulty in finding and counting homeless people, and multiple delays in the annual

Over Three Dozen Corporate Legal Department Leaders Urge Congress to Support EQUAL Defense Act

March 23, 2022

This month, Pro Bono Institute (PBI) and its global in-house project, Corporate Pro Bono (CPBO), have worked with the National Legal Aid & Defender Association to rally the support of more than three dozen legal department leaders behind the Ensuring Quality Access to Legal Defense (EQUAL Defense) Act of 2021 through a successful letter campaign. The act, formally introduced to Congress as H.R.1408 in February of 2021, aims to establish pay parity between defenders and prosecutors via a federal grant program that would invest $250 million annually to reduce the immense public defender workloads across state, local, and tribal systems. Last week an

Pro Bono & the AAPI Community: A Conversation with Christina Yang of Advancing Justice – LA

February 16, 2022

Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders account for 7.2% of the U.S. population, and are the fastest growing ethnic population in the U.S. In the last few years, there has been a significant increase in hate incidents targeting the Asian American community. PBI’s Corporate Pro Bono project recently joined Christina Yang, General Counsel and Pro Bono Director at Asian Americans Advancing Justice – Los Angeles (Advancing Justice – LA), in conversation to learn more about the challenges facing the AAPI community and what pro bono lawyers can do to help. Yang joined Advancing Justice – LA over seven years ago as

Crime-Free Housing Ordinances

December 8, 2021

Adequate housing is a basic human right, yet there are many barriers to housing in the United States. The PBEye has been following the development of laws and policies that create or ease barriers to housing, including the response to growing housing insecurity during the pandemic, the impact of the end of the national eviction moratorium, the decriminalization of homelessness through the establishment of homeless courts, and the movement to secure a right to counsel for tenants in housing court. In this latest article, we look at the impact of crime-free housing ordinances. Crime-free housing ordinances vary widely state to state and within county and city jurisdictions, but

Author: Kim Kerker