Corporate Pro Bono Archives - Page 12 of 19

Greetings from the ACC Annual Meeting

October 29, 2013

Coming live from Hollywood this week! CPBO is in Los Angeles at the ACC Annual Meeting. After spending Sunday evening meeting in-house counsel who stopped by the booth in the Exhibit Hall, CPBO kicked off Monday with a Clinic in a BoxSM Program attended by 40 in-house volunteers. After volunteers received training from Alston & Bird*† and Public Counsel, they teamed up to meet with Los Angeles area nonprofit representatives to conduct a pro bono legal assessment for the organizations. Later that day, CPBO hosted a session, “The Ethics of Pro Bono Practice by In-House Counsel.” California Court of Appeal

In-House Pro Bono Budgets

October 22, 2013

While Congress continues to quarrel about the federal budget, your legal department may want to think about its own budget with regard to its pro bono program. CPBO’s 2012 Benchmarking Report asked departments a number of budget questions, including which of the following source(s) fund the pro bono program. For departments with a separate budget or a line item within the legal department’s budget, the 2012 Benchmarking Report found that the total amount allocated to the pro bono program within that budget varied across departments as follows: While budgeting aims to predict expenses accurately, occasionally departments under-budget. When this happens,

Sleep Insurance for In-House Pro Bono

October 15, 2013

Claims against in-house counsel and their employers arising from pro bono legal services are nearly nonexistent. Nonetheless, no one wants to be the exception to the rule. While, legal departments, unlike law firms, do not always carry such insurance, CPBO’s 2012 Benchmarking Report demonstrates that there are a number of options available to legal departments. The following graphs from the report show the percentage of respondent legal departments that select each of the options: In-house counsel remain keenly interested in their options for professional liability coverage (sometimes referred to as a type of “sleep insurance” due to the infrequency of

CPBO at the ACC AM in LA

October 1, 2013

It’s that time of year again! CPBO will travel to the City of Angels to participate in the 2013 ACC Annual Meeting from October 27-30. At the Meeting, CPBO will host a number of events highlighting in-house pro bono. Clinic in a BoxSM Program Monday, October 28 from 7:00 am – 10:30 am Co-hosted at the Annual Meeting by CPBO, ACC SoCal, Alston & Bird*†, and Public Counsel, CPBO’s Clinic in a BoxSM Program offers in-house counsel the opportunity to earn CLE credit and provide a pro bono legal assessment to representatives of Los Angeles area nonprofits. Pre-registration is required

In-House Hot Topic: Technology

September 24, 2013

While some in-house attendees at this year’s PBI Annual Conference talked about recognition during the In-House Track Hot Topics Session, another group focused on technology’s existing and potential impact on pro bono. David March, senior counsel at Target Corporation**, led representatives from seven legal departments in a thoughtful discussion of the topic, which emphasized that technology, when applied properly, can assist remote clients and improve the effectiveness of pro bono efforts. Those points and the challenges associated with using technology for pro bono are summarized below. Delivery of Pro Bono Services One of the greatest challenges to improving access to

Legal Departments, Law Firms, and Pro Bono

September 17, 2013

In January 2012, PBI President and CEO Esther Lardent wrote about pro bono partnerships between law firms and legal departments and the many benefits they can produce. According to CPBO’s 2012 Benchmarking Survey, pro bono partnerships are on the rise: 86 percent of responding legal departments partnered with law firms on pro bono in 2012, up from 68 percent in 2010. And nearly a quarter of responding legal departments partner with firms with whom they do not already have a business relationship. This is not the only trend. CPBO’s 2012 Benchmarking Survey also found that a law firm’s pro bono

Goodbye Summer

August 30, 2013

The summer always seems to come and go so fast doesn’t it? Labor Day is a few days away, and we at The PBEye have stopped to reflect on some of our experiences over the summer. First, we thank (and very much miss) our summer interns So Jin Kim, Juliet Mun, John Treat, and Alex Wodarczyk for their hard work over the past few months. We have high expectations for all four of them and wish them the best of luck in their studies and careers. We also are extremely grateful to two special guests who spent time with the

CPBO Provides Updates on MJP for CCJ and COSCA

August 13, 2013

Has it been a year already? Last summer, PBI President and CEO Esther F. Lardent, CPBO Director Eve Runyon, and Walgreen Co.** General Counsel Thomas Sabatino presented at the annual meeting of Conference of Chief Justices (CCJ) and the Conference of State Court Administrators (COSCA) to the CCJ Professionalism and Competence of the Bar Committee and the CCJ/COSCA Access, Fairness and Public Trust Committee on the burdensome multijurisdictional practice (MJP) rules that restrict some in-house lawyers from providing pro bono services. At that meeting, the CCJ and COSCA adopted Resolution 11, which asks CCJ members to “consider promoting the expansion of

Call Me, Maybe?

August 6, 2013

What phone number do you give to your clients when providing pro bono assistance? And better yet, what email address? Providing pro bono clients effective representation certainly requires accessible and practical levels of communication, which raises the question: Do you use your work or personal contact information? The following graphs from CPBO’s 2012 Benchmarking Survey Report show the percentage of respondent legal departments that permit volunteers to use company letterhead, email accounts, and phone numbers when communicating with pro bono clients: When volunteers are not permitted to use company letterhead, email accounts, or phone numbers, 45% of the time the

Guest Blog: Work in Progress – Pro bono and the In-house Counsel Population?

May 14, 2013

I have had the opportunity to serve on the Multijurisdictional Practice Task Force (a joint initiative of PBI and CPBO) for a little over a year. When the purpose of the Task Force was being explained to me, its mission sounded like an easy sell: help change states’ practice rules to allow in-house counsel operating on limited licenses to do pro bono. Most states have practice rules that allow in-house lawyers working locally but licensed in another jurisdiction to practice solely for their employers without going through the full bar process (“in-house counsel rules”), but many of those rules don’t

Category: Corporate Pro Bono