The Washington, D.C.-based Pro Bono Institute provides support, guidance and training to major law firms, public interest groups and corporate legal departments interested in initiating or expanding their pro bono efforts.

In 2000, the Pro Bono Institute formed the Corporate Pro Bono Organization in collaboration with the Association of Corporate Counsel to advocate for and promote corporate pro bono efforts. At that time, "corporate pro bono was an oxymoron," said Esther Lardent, president of PBI. "People looked at you like it was ludicrous to suggest corporate pro bono. It was not widely known and there was no buzz about it," she said. The political, social and business climate was right for the venture.

"In the waning days of the Clinton administration, the president had an initiative called Lawyers for One America," she said. The goal of that directive was both to increase diversity in the legal profession and expand pro bono representation of "persons and communities of color," Lardent said. It also happens that both PBI and ACC were receiving inquiries from corporate legal departments nationwide seeking information about initiating pro bono programs. But, she said, "We didn't have the information or the resources to really offer thoughtful, reliable help."

In fact, corporate legal departments interested in enhancing or initiating pro bono programs had no central place to find necessary information. ACC suggested that they pool their resources to create one entity whose mission was to "change the culture about pro bono and remove any obstacles to in-house pro bono," Lardent said.

For an organization whose full-time staff includes one attorney/director and one project assistant, this is a lofty goal, admitted Lardent. Yet, in the six years since its inception, CPBO has enjoyed incredible support from a variety of sources, including from Susan Hackett, senior vice president and general counsel of ACC, CPBO's volunteer leadership, corporate legal departments nationwide and Lardent herself, she said.

THE BENEFITS OF CORPORATE PRO BONO WORK

Fred Krebs, president of ACC for the past 15 years, views corporate pro bono as "a professional obligation to give back" to the community. Not only that, he said, "it enhances a company's presence in the area."

Corporate attorneys who perform pro bono work also benefit because their efforts generally introduce them to areas of law different from their everyday practices.

"Attorneys get exposed to new challenges," said Krebs.

Mark R. Daniel, a member of the legal department at Merck, the Rahway, N.J., pharmaceutical company, believes his company's pro bono efforts are an excellent example of that. "I wanted to get into domestic, bankruptcy and family law, so pro bono was a good outlet," he said.

MERCK'S MULTIPLE EFFORTS

Merck's corporate legal department offers pro bono services on several fronts. For example, it has partnered with Central Jersey Legal Services. CJLS, created by the 2003 merger of the Legal Aid Society of Mercer County, Middlesex County Legal Services Corp. and Union County Legal Services Corp., provides representation in civil cases to residents of Central New Jersey. Through Merck's partnership with CJLS, corporate counsel consult with CJLS clients at the service provider's office or, if a client is unable to travel there, at the client's home.

Merck's legal department is also the first in New Jersey to participate in Street Law. In that program, Merck attorneys meet with high school students from Orange and Hoboken, N.J., high schools, introducing them to the practice of law and answering general legal questions of interest to the students.

Fitting pro bono into a demanding work schedule is a challenge but "Merck work comes first," Daniel emphasizes. To ensure that he meets both his paid responsibilities and his pro bono commitments, he often works through lunch or stays late. Still, Daniel is committed to his pro bono service. "It's important to represent those who couldn't have legal representation," he said.

FIVE OBSTACLES -- WHICH CAN BE OVERCOME

The time commitment is only one of the issues facing corporations that want to initiate pro bono services. Lardent has identified five concerns or obstacles to corporate pro bono: obtaining malpractice insurance coverage for pro bono cases, matching the skill sets of corporate lawyers with the legal needs of the clients, providing pro bono legal services to clients in a jurisdiction where the attorneys may not be licensed, finding the right public sector partner and obtaining proper training for the lawyers. "These concerns kept corporate legal departments from offering pro bono," she said.

Fortunately, there are answers to these dilemmas. For example, most corporate law departments don't carry malpractice insurance because they deal with only one client and the principles of indemnification apply in liability matters. If the corporate law department hitches its pro bono program to a bar association or law firm, however, its pro bono representations are likely to be insured, Lardent said. Corporations may also be able to purchase malpractice insurance only for its pro bono work, she added.

Researching the pro bono efforts of other companies, within and outside similar industries, can provide information about what types of pro bono programs or services corporate law departments are engaged in. Lardent also suggested narrowing the focus of the pro bono program first by discussing the project with others in the department to "get a sense of what others in the office are doing, pro bono-wise, and what they'd be interested in doing," and then, if there is no clear consensus among the participants, contacting public interest organizations in the community to learn what their pro bono needs might be.

Lardent also suggested partnering with an established entity, such as a bar association or law firm, that may be equipped to provide your company's law department with the training, mentoring and other resources necessary to develop a successful pro bono venture.

CLINIC IN A BOX

Initiating a pro bono program can seem daunting, but it needn't be. In fact, one method of offering pro bono legal services can even be delivered to your corporate offices. In a box.

CPBO created a "Clinic in a Box" to serve as the framework for an on-site pro bono clinic for corporate legal departments, law firms and other legal entities interested in providing free legal representation. "It's a manageable, discreet pro bono opportunity designed to give real benefits," said Lardent.

The clinic is a one-day commitment with two important components. In the morning, participating lawyers receive intensive CLE training designed to teach them how to assess legal issues confronting small business owners and/or nonprofit organizations, the usual clients for this type of pro bono work. Armed with this new knowledge, the lawyers meet clients in the afternoon to address their legal concerns. Should the client require assistance or legal representation beyond that brief encounter, the lawyer has the option of providing ongoing pro bono services.

One goal of the Clinic in a Box is to encourage in-house lawyers to utilize their transactional legal skills to perform pro bono work by arming them with knowledge and providing them the venue. According to Lardent, the clinic is also designed to "foster closer ties between the corporations, their communities and public interest groups."

PARTNERING WITH NONPROFIT ORGANIZATIONS

In Philadelphia, corporate legal departments enjoy an active partnership with nonprofit organizations whose mission is to help coordinate local pro bono efforts. One such group, Philadelphia LawWorks, a project of Philadelphia Volunteers for the Indigent Program (VIP), contributes to the city's economic development by encouraging pro bono representation of homeowners, nonprofits and small business owners.

Stefanie Fleischer Seldin, a managing attorney of Philadelphia VIP, coordinated Philadelphia LawWorks' second annual Corporate Pro Bono Day in September 2005. The program, held in cooperation with the ACC's Delaware Valley Chapter (DELVACCA) and CPBO, emulated the Clinic in a Box model. Seventeen lawyers representing eight corporate law departments received continuing legal education training from three attorneys from the Philadelphia office of Duane Morris on legal issues facing the 13 pro bono clients they were to counsel later in the day.

Richard Cohen, one of the Duane Morris lawyers who participated in Corporate Pro Bono Day, views his involvement as an extension of his own pro bono efforts.

"I like to help corporate lawyers in their endeavors to provide pro bono because it expands the pro bono efforts in my city while helping small businesses, too," said Cohen. His favorite part of the day was that "participants were so engaged, interactive and excited to offer pro bono," he added.

The program went so smoothly that Pennsylvania LawWorks hosted it's third annual Corporate Pro Bono Day yesterday, with a similar agenda -- providing micro-entrepreneurs the opportunity to discuss immediate and ongoing legal matters with corporate counsel from various Philadelphia-area businesses. Registered corporate volunteers included counsel from PECO Energy, Comcast Cable Communications, Pep Boys, GlaxoSmithKline and many others.

The event was hosted by the Enterprise Center, a minority business development center located in the historic American Bandstand Building in West Philadelphia. Prior to the counseling sessions, attorneys from Blank Rome provided a continuing legal education seminar on the essential legal needs of small businesses.

CORPORATE PRO BONO WORK ON THE RISE

Seldin hopes that programs like this mark the beginning of the participating lawyers' pro bono efforts, not the end. "We consider this an introduction to pro bono. We hope our volunteers use this as an entrée to doing pro bono on their own," she said.

Lardent believes that corporate pro bono is on the upswing for a number of reasons. "Corporate pro bono is clearly growing because of the migration of attorneys from firms, typically larger ones, where pro bono is more the norm," she said. When a lawyer from a large firm with a vibrant pro bono atmosphere joins a corporate legal department without a similar program, they often seek to establish one, she explained. The belief that lawyers should "give back" to their communities is also common among large firm lawyers. When they join in-house legal departments, they bring that philosophy with them.

And not only do the recipients of pro bono legal services benefit from the generosity of the lawyers and support staff who help them, but so do the attorneys and even the corporations that participate. "Corporate social responsibility improves job satisfaction, morale and skills," said Lardent.

The lawyers are also usually more productive because they demonstrate a greater commitment to their jobs, she said. "Corporations are also realizing that it is part of their responsibility, besides making money, to be a good corporate citizen and give back to the communities in which they work."

In 2002, CPBO sent a baseline survey to numerous corporate legal departments across the country to gauge their attitudes towards and participation in corporate pro bono projects. The survey "showed pro bono was under the radar, offered in snippets," Lardent said. This past May, the CPBO sent an updated version of the survey to 2,000 legal departments across the country "to see where pro bono has gone since 2002," she said. While Lardent can't predict for certain what the survey results will reveal, she predicts, "My guess is it will show more participation in pro bono and more formal responses to pro bono requests."

Tami Kamin-Meyer is a writer and Ohio attorney who volunteered in the Street Law program while a student at Capital University Law School in Columbus, Ohio.