Reporting season for the Law Firm Pro Bono Challenge® will open in January, and Challenge Signatories should be on the lookout for an email with your unique survey link. The deadline for reporting data for calendar year 2014 is February 27. Each year, Challenge Signatories provide a brief, confidential report to the Law Firm Project on their progress in meeting the Challenge. The individual firm data is kept confidential, but each report provides the basis for critically important aggregate statistics about trends in law firm pro bono. Among other things, Challenge Signatories aspire to devote a majority of their pro bono

Last month, PBI hosted its eighth annual Leadership Convocation in New York. Prior to our Annual Dinner, law firm and in-house leaders convened to explore innovative ways to maximize the impact of pro bono in their communities. Expert panelists discussed how organizations and stakeholders are collaborating through large-scale, multi-institutional pro bono efforts to address critical problems and vast unmet legal needs. We were excited to see a recent feature in The New York Times about one of the collaborative initiatives highlighted during the program: the Shriver Project, which consists of seven pilot projects that provide legal representation to a select number

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and as we prepare to join with family and friends for a festive meal, this holiday season of gratitude and generosity of spirit has us thinking about the less fortunate among us and pro bono efforts designed to fight hunger and increase the availability of nutritious and affordable food. As we’ve previously reported, there are a variety of ways in which pro bono attorneys from all practice backgrounds can work to increase access to healthy food. Opportunities for involvement include providing counsel to eligible nonprofit organizations, helping low-income individuals navigate the application process for public benefits, producing

Don’t miss out on your chance to schedule a house call with the Law Firm Pro Bono Project. We recently met with law firms in New York City, and we are currently planning our travel schedule for 2015. Make sure your city is one of our destinations! These house calls are part of our expert and confidential consultative services program, under which Law Firm Pro Bono Project staff visit law firms and meet with firm and office leaders; pro bono committees; pro bono partners, coordinators, directors, and managers; and others to offer individualized assistance. During these meetings we discuss issues

At last week’s 2014 PBI Annual Dinner, which took place at Gotham Hall in New York, PBI was honored to present the 2014 John H. Pickering Award to Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom*† for its outstanding innovation and commitment to pro bono and public service. With the recent two-year anniversary of Hurricane Sandy garnering significant media attention, we are struck yet again as to why Skadden was such a deserving honoree. Skadden’s leadership was on full display during its extensive involvement in post-storm relief efforts, both for individuals affected by the storm and for nonprofit legal services providers. Among

PBI’s Law Firm Pro Bono Project recently released its annual Law Firm Pro Bono Challenge® Report, which examines the pro bono activities of firms that are Signatories to the Challenge. We are pleased to report that 2013 marked another strong year of pro bono performance. One hundred twenty-eight firms reported performing more than 4.3 million hours of pro bono service in 2013. A few additional highlights include: • Hours Per Attorney Increase Average pro bono hours per attorney increased in 2013 to 65 hours per attorney, from 62.2 hours per attorney in 2012. • Meeting Their Challenge Goal Seventy-six firms met