WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Corporate Pro Bono (CPBO) project of Pro Bono Institute (PBI) has released its 2025 Corporate Pro Bono Challenge® Report: In-House Pro Bono by the Numbers, which benchmarks pro bono performance in 2024.
The Corporate Pro Bono Challenge initiative is a voluntary commitment by legal department leaders to encourage and promote pro bono service, setting an aspirational goal that 50 percent of legal department employees, including attorneys and legal staff, will participate in pro bono annually. There are more than 190 Corporate Pro Bono Challenge signatories. Each year, CPBO invites signatories to participate in a survey about their legal department’s pro bono participation in the prior year.
The resulting 2025 Report provides valuable insights into the complex pro bono landscape and highlights pro bono trends across a sample of in-house legal departments. While average pro bono participation rates declined slightly in 2024 compared to 2023, many departments maintained or increased their pro bono engagement.
“The CPBO Challenge Report reveals a dynamic and evolving landscape for in-house pro bono,” said Eve Runyon, PBI President and CEO. “While participation rates across departments continues to vary, the number of departments participating in pro bono legal services grows. We are encouraged that more departments have adopted the CPBO Challenge initiative—a strong testament to the commitment of in-house lawyers to provide meaningful pro bono to those in need.”
Alyssa Saunders, Director of CPBO said, “The 2025 Report reflects that thousands of in-house lawyers and legal staff are delivering much-needed pro bono legal services. We are grateful to the law department pro bono leaders who are expanding in-house pro bono for the long term, to the attorneys and legal staff who donate their time to deliver pro bono legal services, and the Chief Legal Officers and General Counsel who encourage and support the pro bono engagement of their departments.”
An Overview of All 2024 Responding Legal Departments
- 46% of U.S. lawyers at responding departments participated in pro bono in 2024.
- 31% of U.S. legal staff at responding departments participated in pro bono in 2024.
- 59% of global departments reported pro bono activity outside the U.S. in 2024. Responding departments collectively engaged in pro bono in 42 countries in 2024.
- In 2024, responding legal departments that track pro bono hours reported more than 32,000 pro bono hours.
- Legal departments provided much-needed pro bono legal services to domestic violence survivors, at-risk youth, immigrants and refugees, low-income seniors and families, veterans, criminal justice-involved individuals, and small start-ups and nonprofits.
Year-Over-Year Participation for Signatories Who Responded to Consecutive CPBO Challenge surveys:
- 49% of U.S. lawyers participated in pro bono in 2024 (compared to 53% in 2023).
- 35% of U.S. legal staff participated in pro bono in 2024 (compared to 40% in 2023).
- Despite the lower averages, participation trends were mixed. Many departments grew or maintained their engagement from the previous year, while others’ participation declined.
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About Pro Bono Institute
Founded in 1996, PBI is a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit organization. With an unparalleled depth of knowledge, resources and expertise, PBI is the respected resource for all things pro bono. Through our work with law firms, in-house corporate legal departments, and public interest organizations, PBI is the global thought leader in exploring, identifying, evaluating, catalyzing, and taking to scale new approaches to and resources for the provision of legal services to the poor, disadvantaged, and other individuals or groups unable to secure legal assistance to address critical problems.
About the Corporate Pro Bono project
The Corporate Pro Bono (CPBO) project, launched in 2000, is the initiative of PBI that supports, enhances, and transforms the pro bono efforts of in-house corporate legal departments. Since its inception, the CPBO project has worked with hundreds of legal departments around the globe to strengthen in-house pro bono.