PBI is honored to present Entergy Corporation and Marcus V. Brown, Executive Vice President and General Counsel, with the 2025 Laurie D. Zelon Pro Bono Award at the PBI 2025 Annual Conference on February 27.
This annual award recognizes an individual or organization’s exceptional commitment to pro bono as demonstrated by exemplary engagement in pro bono legal services.
Entergy Corporation reimagined its pro bono program in 2012 and signed the Corporate Pro Bono Challenge® statement in 2015, committing to engage more than 50 percent of its legal staff in pro bono work. In 2023, 78 percent of Entergy’s attorneys participated in pro bono. To encourage giving back to the communities Entergy serves, all employees are provided with 16 hours of paid time off annually to volunteer and do pro bono work.
Entergy’s pro bono program helps community members through a variety of free legal services. Their attorneys and staff partner with legal aid organizations to offer free legal advice and representation on matters ranging from life-planning documents for seniors, veterans, and first responders, FEMA claims following natural disasters, helping low-income community members secure home ownership and preserve generational wealth, access to veterans’ benefits, family law, and support for nonprofits as well as minority- and women-owned small businesses.
In addition to helping create a program that dramatically increased the pro bono commitment of the company’s attorneys and legal staff, Brown also established a full-time, in-house counsel role at Entergy dedicated to pro bono legal assistance – a unique position amongst Fortune 500 companies. In this role, Christy Kane, Entergy’s Senior Pro Bono Counsel, has been instrumental in expanding in-house pro bono at Entergy, including the launch of EmPOWERing Pro Bono Day with PBI, and aligning pro bono efforts with Entergy’s corporate social responsibility initiatives.
Over the past decade, Entergy’s legal department employees have performed nearly 21,000 hours of pro bono services. That’s a $5.6 million in-kind donation to the Entergy’s communities. In 2023, attorneys and legal staff volunteered more than 1,600 hours of pro bono time.
EmPOWERing Pro Bono Day
Entergy has served as a leader in its communities, engaging others to participate in pro bono activities. In 2022, Entergy’s legal department partnered with PBI and the Edison Electric Institute to launch EmPOWERing Pro Bono Day, which brings together in-house legal teams from electric and gas companies to provide crucial pro bono legal assistance to underserved communities.
In 2024, EmPOWERing Pro Bono Day featured 24 impactful pro bono events and trainings, including four held by Entergy. EmPOWERing Pro Bono Day 2024 also fostered a significant increase in both volunteer participation and the number of clients served: 336 in-house volunteers participated in these events, offering vital legal assistance to 463 clients. Several events included training sessions that will expand the reach of pro bono support in the coming months. Volunteers also created new resources to help nonprofits serve more beneficiaries.
Entergy’s Signature Program: Power to Serve
Through Entergy’s signature pro bono program, Power to Serve, volunteers support local nonprofits by addressing governance, human resources and other issues so they can better serve their communities. Entergy attorneys also provide training and materials for minority, small business owners, such as early childcare centers, to build strong businesses that support working families. Finally, through the Power to Serve, attorneys prepare employees to be informed, effective nonprofit board members. The company then works to match these employees with a nonprofit organization.
Celebrating National Pro Bono Week: Free Legal Answers Day
In October 2024, Entergy legal professionals celebrated National Pro Bono Week by participating in the fourth annual “Free Legal Answers Day,” where volunteers provide pro bono legal support to community members through the American Bar Association’s website freelegalanswers.org. Entergy also hosted five simultaneous legal clinics throughout its service territory – Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas, as well as in Washington, D.C. This event has generated friendly competition among Entergy offices, with prize categories like the best team name, most pro bono hours, and highest participation rate. Last year, the event drew 115 volunteers – with legal professionals from nine Entergy offices, four law firms and students from three law schools.
About Marcus V. Brown
Marcus Brown is executive vice president and general counsel of Entergy, where he oversees the legal, ethics and compliance, corporate communications, federal policy, regulatory and governmental affairs, and corporate security and governance groups. He also provides legal counsel to the chair and CEO, board of directors, and senior management.
Brown’s own pro bono work includes volunteering at the Orleans Civil District Court’s Self-Help Resource Center, helping self-represented litigants navigate family law proceedings in court. He has also volunteered at legal resource tables as part of Entergy’s customer appreciation events.
He serves as chair of the New Orleans 2025 Super Bowl LIX Host Committee, is on the board of directors for Energy Insurance Mutual, on the advisory board of the Tulane Center for Energy Law, and the advisory council for the Laborde Energy Law Center at Louisiana State University. He is a frequent lecturer and publisher on topics impacting the utility industry and the legal profession.
About the Laurie D. Zelon Pro Bono Award
PBI named the award as a tribute to the Honorable Laurie D. Zelon, retired Associate Justice of the California 2nd District Court of Appeal, who was one of the originators of the PBI Law Firm Pro Bono Challenge® initiative. Justice Zelon served as chair and was a longtime member of the California Access to Justice Commission. She has been active with several statewide judicial committees addressing justice administration issues.