Category: Pro Bono Partnerships

While only a small group, volunteers from the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), Northwest Justice Project, and Foster Pepper are aiming to have a big impact on a serious problem for Native American and Alaska Native artisans: counterfeiters. Many Native American and Alaska native artists, whose income relies on creating and selling traditional arts and crafts, are unable to compete with counterfeiters who saturate the market with mass produced knock-offs. Beginning in 2010, the lean team of four attorneys and eight non-lawyers (including the AFSC volunteer committee) has attacked this issue using multiple legal and non-legal avenues by educating Native artisans

Headquartered in Springfield, Mass., and having a large satellite office in nearby Enfield, Conn., with a combined legal department composed of 56 attorneys and 80 non-lawyers, Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company** (MassMutual) has the distinction of employing more lawyers than any other company or law firm in the greater Springfield area. As a result, when the legal department started to formalize its pro bono efforts in 2007, it did not have the option of working with a larger legal department or large firm with an existing pro bono program. Instead, MassMutual developed its own distinctive pro bono effort. Over the

The PBEye is proud to highlight one legal department’s efforts to assist veterans on a pro bono basis. The Connecticut Veterans Legal Center (CVLC), a nonprofit that helps veterans overcome legal barriers, was just four-months old with only one full-time staff member when it was approached by the Sikorsky Aircraft, Corp. In the years since, Sikorsky’s legal department has built a pro bono project that dedicates staff and resources to achieve a number of positive outcomes for veterans in Connecticut. Sikorsky, while small in staff, has worked with CVLC to provide pro bono representation in more than 20 cases to

As Target Corporation**, Lindquist & Vennum*, and the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota (ILCM) demonstrate, with new legislation comes new opportunities to serve those in desperate need of legal assistance. In June 2012, the Obama Administration issued a directive implemented by the Department of Homeland Security which provides eligible immigrants the opportunity to defer deportation action and seek work authorization through the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.  In Minnesota, a team of lawyers from Target, Lindquist, and ILCM, worked together to develop a pro bono project to help these young immigrants realize their rights under this new directive.

When the Colorado Supreme Court’s Commission on the Legal Profession asked CenturyLink, Inc. and Bryan Cave*† in August 2012 to provide pro bono assistance to pro se clients in the Seventeenth Judicial District, they eagerly jumped to the challenge. Together, CenturyLink and Bryan Cave developed and now staff the Adam’s County Self Help Resource Center Support Initiative, an innovative pro bono effort that overcomes the issue of connecting pro se litigants that are located far from volunteers. The result has helped not only thousands of individual pro se litigants in a few months, but the entire local court system. The

To help address the growing need for legal assistance for low-income individuals about the complex bureaucracy surrounding government health insurance programs, Fenwick & West*† and the Legal Aid Society of San Mateo County launched a new project in October 2010 aimed at increasing access to affordable health care. Working together, the partnership organized clinics to advise low-income seniors and disabled adults on how to qualify for affordable healthcare coverage. These “Share of Cost” clinics serve individuals and families in San Mateo County, Calif., whose income is slightly above the Federal Poverty Level but is insufficient to meet the expense of