Global Pro Bono Archives - Pro Bono Institute

Pledging to Do More In-House Pro Bono

April 30, 2024

Challenge, accepted! Pledge, taken! Target, aimed! Legal department leaders around the globe have more opportunities than ever before to publicly commit to engaging their legal teams in pro bono. In April 2024, the UK In House Pro Bono Pledge joined the global Corporate Pro Bono Challenge® initiative and the Australian National Pro Bono Target as a way for GCs and CLOs to demonstrate their commitment to pro bono. These initiatives share a common purpose of motivating in-house pro bono participation. The Corporate Pro Bono (CPBO) project of Pro Bono Institute (PBI) launched the Corporate Pro Bono Challenge initiative, in 2006

DLA Piper Rebuilding Hope: Pro Bono for Ukraine’s Small Businesses

February 22, 2024

The war in Ukraine has dramatically impacted the country’s small businesses, which face challenges that include the disruption of supply chains, destroyed infrastructure, labor shortages due to migration, and difficulty in accessing capital. New Perimeter, DLA Piper’s global pro bono initiative, is working with the Uzhorod National University Faculty of Law, a law school in Western Ukraine, to help establish and support a legal clinic that will enable Law School faculty and students to provide pro bono assistance to address the critical legal needs of Ukrainian small businesses. DLA Piper has collaborated with the law school in several ways including

Global Pro Bono: Resources, Projects, and Partnerships

February 24, 2021

In recent decades, there has been an uptick of interest among law firms and legal departments to expand pro bono engagement by lawyers and legal staff in countries across the globe.[1] A variety of factors have led to this, including growing emphasis on corporate social responsibility, globalization of the legal profession, greater international emphasis on human rights and access to justice, increasing awareness of economic and social inequities, newly emerging democracies, and newly formed entities that support pro bono engagement. According to the 2020 Benchmarking Survey from the PBI® Corporate Pro Bono project, 35 percent of in-house legal departments indicated that they already engage in global pro bono work, and law firms around the globe are engaging their volunteers in pro bono. While pro bono services are well developed in many places, there are also many countries around the world where pro bono work is either nonexistent or in a nascent stage. Utilizing appropriate resources and learning from past or current global projects is beneficial to the success of increased pro bono engagement.

Pro Bono Values Project

November 17, 2016

“[I]t is the right thing to do. Everyone should have access to justice. A lot of people do not have access to justice because they cannot afford it. It is my spiritual view on humanity and my personal belief.” (Graduate Lawyer, Medium Law Firm.) We recently learned about an intriguing empirical study that examines the motivations of lawyers who participate in pro bono work. Over a four month period, the University of Queensland Pro Bono Centre at TC Beirne School of Law interviewed lawyers across Australia. The lawyers came from firms of various sizes, practice areas, and seniority levels. The

Guest Blog: Growing Pro Bono Work Around the World

September 6, 2016

We at The PBEye are inspired every day by the Corporate Pro Bono Challenge® signatories. In celebration of the 10th anniversary of the launch of the CPBO Challenge® initiative, we are showcasing some of their projects with the hope that they inspire you, too. By Erica Wang, General Counsel, 3M China and Hong Kong 3M Company’s** General Counsel Ivan Fong likes to quote Marian Wright Edelman, president and founder of the Children’s Defense Fund, to describe our legal team’s approach to pro bono work: “Service is the rent we pay for being. It is the very purpose of life and not something

Pro Bono Leaders Shine at Transatlantic Legal Awards

June 21, 2016

Legal Week and The American Lawyer recently hosted the 2016 Transatlantic Legal Awards, celebrating achievement by both firms and in-house legal departments in global legal affairs. In particular, The PBEye was thrilled to hear that among the awardees were many leaders with regard to pro bono, including Microsoft Corporation**, its President and Chief Legal Officer Brad Smith, and DLA Piper*†. DLA Piper was recognized as Pro Bono Programme of the Year in honor of its signature pro bono project, aimed at upholding the rights of and providing legal assistance to the roughly 13.9 million immigrants across the globe displaced by war and

Justice Center for Legal Aid, Jordan

December 4, 2015

PBI recently sat down with Hadeel Abdel Aziz, co-founder and executive director of the Justice Center for Legal Aid (JCLA), located in Amman, Jordan. Aziz visited the U.S. this fall as an Eisenhower Fellow and met with Law Firm Pro Bono Project Director Tammy Taylor and Global Pro Bono Project Coordinator Sri Katragadda to discuss pro bono and access to justice, both in the U.S. and in Jordan. A nonprofit organization established in 2008, JCLA has grown from one legal aid clinic in Amman into the largest legal aid provider in Jordan, with 25 clinics located across the country. In

Technology and Access to Justice

November 24, 2015

The PBEye is excited to report on an online tool in the U.K. called CourtNav, developed by the Royal Courts of Justice Advice Bureau (RCJ Advice) in partnership with Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer†. Employing a user-friendly design with simple step-by-step questions, CourtNav helps clients who cannot afford a lawyer complete forms and navigate the court process. RCJ Advice first triages clients by phone to determine whether someone needs face-to-face advice or can be assisted through CourtNav, which has a number of helpful features — it can spot inconsistent answers, identify whether the client qualifies for reduced court fees, and summarize current

Partnership Develops Tools to Aid Judges in South Asia

August 26, 2015

South Asia has suffered from a significant amount of terrorist violence over the years. For example, 38 percent of terrorist incidents in 2013 occurred in South Asia, according to the Global Center on Cooperative Security. In 2014, according to the U.S. State Department, more than 60 percent of terrorist attacks took place in just five countries (Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, and Nigeria), of which three are in South Asia; nearly 6,700 people died from terrorist attacks in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and India that year. In recognition of the need to build expertise in the adjudication of terrorism-related cases, the Global Center

Liberia, the Magna Carta, and the Rule of Law

June 17, 2015

On June 15, thousands of people from around the world descended on a field in Runnymede in the United Kingdom to celebrate the 800th anniversary of the sealing of the Magna Carta. Although the Magna Carta was not the first time a monarch agreed to respect the rights and liberties of others, it went on to become an icon for the revolutionary concepts of due process and the rule of law. As British Prime Minister David Cameron noted at the commemoration, “Think of South Africa – of that courtroom in Rivonia. As Nelson Mandela stood in the dock, looking at

Category: Global Pro Bono