Corporate Pro Bono Archives - Pro Bono Institute

In-House Counsel in the Community: Advancing Justice Through Pro Bono in Domestic Violence and Immigration Matters

July 29, 2024

PBI Signatory Showcase Interview with Kimball Electronics, Inc.** Organized by the Orange County Public Law Center, Kimball Electronics has been actively involved in the Domestic Violence Assistance Program where they provide vital legal support, assisting clients in obtaining restraining orders to protect them from domestic violence. These efforts are crucial in empowering individuals to secure their safety and that of their loved ones. The department also collaborates with the Indiana Bar Foundation’s Indiana Legal Help walk-in clinics, both in-person and online. Both organizations work to improve legal assistance for people across the state of Indiana. And beyond direct client representation,

The Force Multiplier Effect: Combining Partnership, Mentorship, Technology and More to Serve Nonprofits and Impact Community

May 29, 2024

PBI Signatory Showcase Interview with Koch Capabilities, LLC and Barnes & Thornburg LLP In February 2020, weeks before the pandemic began to ripple across the U.S., Koch Industries welcomed representatives from our panel of preferred law firms to Wichita. Koch General Counsel Ray Geoffroy felt strongly that Koch had a tremendous opportunity to accomplish so much good for society by leveraging our combined capabilities (internal lawyers and external panel firm lawyers) on a larger scale. He challenged the law firms to partner with our Pro Bono Initiative and become a “force multiplier” to Koch’s efforts. Further, he set the expectation

Pro Bono Evolution: A New Maturity Model for In-House Pro Bono

October 30, 2023

The legal department at Microsoft and the Corporate Pro Bono (CPBO®) project of Pro Bono Institute are proud to announce the release of a Pro Bono Maturity Model for in-house pro bono programs. In-house pro bono has grown over the past three decades, with more corporate legal departments creating and implementing formal pro bono programs. The Pro Bono Maturity Model is designed to assist pro bono leaders at departments with robust or longstanding pro bono programs who may wonder how to take their program to the next level. The Maturity Model offers guidance to departments to assess the strengths and

Chief Legal Officer’s Point of View: Doing Well and Doing Good

October 25, 2023

Corporate Pro Bono (CPBO), a global project of Pro Bono Institute (PBI) committed to enhancing in-house pro bono, presented a session at the 2023 Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC) Annual Meeting in San Antonio, Texas this week: Chief Legal Officer’s Point of View: Doing Well and Doing Good. Eve Runyon, President and CEO of PBI, moderated an engaging discussion with Marcus Brown, Executive Vice President & General Counsel of Entergy Corporation, and Hossein Nowbar, Chief Legal Officer of Microsoft Corporation. Entergy and Microsoft both have robust, longstanding pro bono programs. They are signatories to the Corporate Pro Bono Challenge® initiative,

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

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

Panel Recap: The Chief Legal Officer’s Point of View: Sustainability, Racial Justice, and In-House Pro Bono

November 15, 2021

By PBI Intern Søren Whiting On October 21, 2021, at the 2021 Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC) Annual Meeting, Corporate Pro Bono (CPBO) hosted an engaging panel discussion on leaders of corporate in-house departments engaging their teams to strengthen their sustainability, racial justice, and in-house pro bono missions. Todd Machtmes, Executive Vice President & General Counsel of Salesforce**, Sandra Phillips Rogers, Group Vice President, General Counsel, Chief Legal Officer, and Chief Diversity Officer of Toyota Motor North America, Inc.; and Allon Stabinsky, Senior Vice President and Chief Deputy General Counsel, of Intel** served as panelists and provided a great discussion. PBI

Help us reach our goal of 200 signatories to the CPBO Challenge® initiative

August 30, 2021

PBI’s Corporate Pro Bono Challenge® (CPBO) initiative is celebrating its 15th Anniversary this year! Since 2006, more than 185 legal departments have signed the CPBO Challenge statement and committed to encouraging their legal staff to use their unique skills to provide pro bono legal services to those in need. We thank our many signatories, which include departments with longstanding pro bono programs and departments that have recently started programs, for their commitment to improving access to justice through pro bono. This year, CPBO staff and members of the CPBO Advisory Board are calling on General Counsels and Chief Legal Officers to sign

200+ Legal Department Leaders Call on Congress to Increase Funding for the Legal Services Corporation

May 27, 2021

For the fifth year in a row, legal department leaders have come together to support funding for 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), along with the National Legal Aid & Defender Association (NLADA) and the Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC), recently circulated a letter inviting General Counsel and Chief Legal Officers to sign on in support of increased funding for LSC for Fiscal Year 2022.

Two Decades of Exceptional In-House Pro Bono

April 12, 2021

In 2020, Corporate Pro Bono (CPBO), the global in-house project of Pro Bono Institute (PBI), celebrated its twentieth anniversary, and published the 2020 Benchmarking Report, the sixth biannual report on the state of in-house pro bono. When CPBO was first founded, in-house pro bono was far less common than it is today. Within a decade, in-house pro bono programs had multiplied and expanded. To track and measure pro bono engagement, CPBO began surveying in-house pro bono leaders about their legal departments’ pro bono programs in 2010, and every other year thereafter.

Category: Corporate Pro Bono