The PBEye
August 10, 2011
The PBEye is delighted to announce that the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation** (Freddie Mac) has signed the Corporate Pro Bono Challenge®, becoming the 106th company to do so! We are excited to welcome Freddie Mac to the distinguished group of Challenge Signatories, and to congratulate outgoing Executive Vice President and General Counsel Robert Bostrom and Interim General Counsel Jack Dye for further demonstrating their legal department’s commitment to pro bono.
Freddie Mac has a longstanding pro bono program. In fact, the Association of Corporate Counsel** recognized Freddie Mac’s legal department in 1995 with the ACC Corporate Pro Bono Award. Freddie Mac’s pro bono committee is chaired by Associate General Counsel Andrea Bridgeman, a textbook pro bono junkie. Bridgeman was instrumental in the recent Virginia rule change that empowered the more than 800 certified in-house attorneys in Virginia to provide desperately needed assistance to low-income individuals and organizations.
The CPBO Challenge® is designed to enable corporate legal departments to identify, benchmark, and communicate their commitment to pro bono service. As part of the Challenge, chief legal officers encourage and promote pro bono service by their legal department staff and use their best efforts to encourage at least one-half of their legal staff to support and participate in pro bono service. In addition, chief legal officers encourage outside law firms with whom they work to acknowledge publicly their support for pro bono by becoming signatories to the Pro Bono Institute’s Law Firm Pro Bono Challenge®. All CPBO Challenge® Signatory legal departments receive information, guidance, and tailored support, free of charge, from CPBO to strengthen their existing pro bono programs or to start new ones. To read the full text of the CPBO Challenge®M or to find the complete list of CPBO Challenge® Signatories, visit the CPBO website.
To become a CPBO Challenge® Signatory, or to obtain more information about the CPBO Challenge®, please contact Eve Runyon, director of CPBO.
**denotes Signatory to the Corporate Pro Bono Challenge®