When he became managing partner of Bingham McCutchen's New York office two years ago, Robert M. Dombroff's mandate was to hire more attorneys and raise the outpost's profile. Pro bono, he realized, would be part of that, but how to be more than just another cog in the pro bono machinery?

"Everywhere you went you would just be one of a variety of firms doing the same thing," he said. He wanted to "make us stand out from the pack."

The solution was what the profession calls "signature" pro bono-in this case, a commitment by Bingham to provide legal support for a group of Harlem schoolchildren and their families through financier George Weiss' Say Yes to Education foundation. Since the organization supports the kids from preschool through high school, Bingham was making a 15-year commitment.

Such are the dynamics of pro bono publico practice: in Dombroff's words, "the intersection of doing good and good business." As Dombroff notes, the program is bringing Bingham recognition, boosting morale and fulfilling his attorneys' obligation to help the downtrodden-"part of that commitment you make as a lawyer."

Once again, The National Law Journal recognizes the firms that met the call from people or organizations that otherwise might not have benefited from the advice of counsel. Selecting the recipients of our 2006 Pro Bono Awards was tough-we received scores of nominations for worthwhile efforts, but settled on four firms of singular achievement in the areas of human and civil rights:

Perkins Coie of Seattle was among the first to recognize its obligation to defend the rights of people like Salim Hamdan, who had been a driver for Osama bin Laden and was among the so-called "enemy combatants" being held indefinitely at the U.S. military base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

Sidley Austin launched its own signature capital litigation project, fielding 80 attorneys on behalf of 15 death row inmates in Alabama.

Heller Ehrman helped prosecute two men who murdered a nun in Brazil.

New York firm Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel challenged a Florida law that essentially drove nonparty-related organizations, including the League of Women Voters, out of the business of registering voters.

Across the profession, firms have been taking steps to institutionalize the pro bono apparatus. Sidley, for example, eliminated a 60-hour yearly cap on pro bono hours that was taken into account for associate bonuses.

"The firm has made it easier for those who want to do pro bono to step forward and volunteer," said John Gallo, a partner in Sidley's Chicago office.

The trends seem positive. Results for 2006 aren't in yet, but 37.3% of the attorneys at the nation's 200 largest law firms reported contributing at least 20 hours of pro bono work in 2005, The American Lawyer, an NLJ sister publication, reported in July. The magazine found an 8.2% gain in the number of lawyers in those firms doing at least 20 hours of pro bono work.