One indication of the increased pro bono involvement of legal departments is the cover story of the February 2009 Inside Counsel magazine, which features a detailed piece on pro bono by in-house counsel – “Paying it Forward.” The article includes a thought-provoking interview with the President and CEO of the Pro Bono Institute, Esther F. Lardent, and highlights the tremendous breakthroughs corporations have made in the provision of pro bono services and the numerous benefits they have gained from developing pro bono projects. The innovative and well-crafted pro bono programs of several Corporate Pro Bono Challenge℠ Signatories were highlighted:

Microsoft Corporation, Sara Lee Corporation, and Caterpillar Inc.

The article features an interview with Brad Smith, Senior Vice President, General Counsel, Corporate Secretary, Legal and Corporate Affairs at Microsoft and Advisory Board Co-Chair of Corporate Pro Bono (CPBO), a national partnership project of the Association of Corporate Counsel and the Pro Bono Institute. Mr. Smith has been a vocal advocate of in-house pro bono and has helped build Microsoft’s pro bono program over the course of several years. In his interview, Mr. Smith suggests developing a signature project such as Microsoft’s Kids in Need of Defense (KIND) project. Even though Microsoft is a large company, Mr. Smith believes that people in both large and smaller companies can find inspiration in the work Microsoft has done. He says, “I remind people that five years ago we were just starting out. Even three years ago we couldn’t imagine doing what we are doing today. The most important thing is to take the first step. Then it’s important to keep taking additional steps.”

At Sara Lee, members of its legal department can participate in two designated pro bono and community service projects developed to involve the entire department. Staff can choose to work with Cabrini Green Legal Aid, which provides family law, housing law, and criminal defense services for low-income people, or to work on a project that teaches legal principles to students at inner city schools. Helen Kaminski, Assistant General Counsel at Sara Lee and pro bono committee member, believes that pro bono is a great way to build a sense of teamwork and community within the department. She says, “The teambuilding aspect has been really fun. To work on a project where we are all out of our comfort zone has been great.”

J.P. Kumar, Corporate Counsel at Caterpillar, has also found tremendous benefits from Caterpillar’s pro bono program. He notes that pro bono has been a great opportunity to build relationships and work in collaboration with outside counsel. Caterpillar has initiated a slightly different approach to pro bono projects. Rather than develop signature projects, Caterpillar has developed a cafeteria-style program with many different options for attorneys and staff, including one day clinics. He says, “We ask people, ‘What are you interested in?’ If we can make it work, we will try to find an opportunity that fits that interest because we believe that once people try pro bono work, they will have a positive experience and will want to do more.”

Read below Esther Lardent’s Inside Counsel interview regarding the growth of in-house pro bono and CPBO’s role in assisting that growth.

Overcoming Obstacles: CPBO helps legal departments take the plunge into pro bono work
Inside Counsel
Mary Swanton
February 2009

Since 2000, Corporate Pro Bono (CPBO), a partnership of the association of Corporate Counsel (ACC) and the Pro Bono Institute, has provided legal departments with pro bono resources including technical assistance, online services, training and consultation. Executive Director Esther Lardent talked to Inside Counsel about the growth of corporate pro bono and the obstacles that still remain.

Q. What role has CPBO played in the recent surge of interest in corporate pro bono?

A. We have raised the visibility of pro bono, shown people examples of successful programs and linked them with each other. This has created a sense that corporate pro bono is doable. We have brought solutions for the special problems that legal departments face—malpractice insurance or moving outside their comfort zone or not knowing how to evaluate public interest partners. We also created the Corporate Pro Bono Challenge, and more than 80 legal departments have signed on.

Q. How have you addressed the malpractice issue?

A. If the legal departments work with public interest groups, we encourage the groups to get malpractice coverage for the pro bono attorneys. We also helped create a couple of very inexpensive [malpractice] policies that companies can purchase.

Q. How do you overcome the fear that corporate lawyers don’t have the legal expertise needed for pro bono work?

A. One way to address that is training, mentoring and partnering. We also have worked with public interest groups to expand the pro bono opportunities that meet the skill sets of in-house counsel, such as transactional work.

We also have many examples of people in legal departments doing a variety of things [outside their area of expertise]. There are now patent lawyers out there doing family law. There are communications lawyers doing representation of kids. There are even legal department lawyers doing death penalty work. I think people are beginning to realize that good lawyers are good lawyers. And if they have passion for a particular area, they can, with a reasonable amount of effort, get up to speed and do that kind of work.

Q. What is the Clinic in a Box℠ program at CPBO?

A. The basic model is a four-hour time commitment. The clients are community-based non-profit groups that face compliance issues and don’t have the legal skills to understand if they are OK. A law firm puts together a training program and manual for the law department or an ACC chapter. The [in-house] lawyers spend one-and-a-half hours being trained and then in two-and-a-half hours they do a legal health checkup to determine whether the non-profit is in compliance on issues such as human resources, tax and governance.

Q. What other suggestions do you have for small legal departments?

A. We spend a lot of time creating partnerships. Sometimes it is finding the right public interest organization to work with. Sometimes it can be a three-way partnership among a legal department, law firm and public interest organization. These days, lots of law firms have structured pro bono programs in which smaller legal departments can play an important role.

Q. What roadblocks to corporate pro bono still remain?

A. You may have an attorney in a corporate office in Chicago who was admitted in California and is not a member of the Illinois bar. In some jurisdictions, he or she would be engaged in the unauthorized practice of law doing pro bono legal work. We are going state by state trying to change the law so people can undertake pro bono work with a designated agency, even if they are not licensed in the jurisdiction. We have a multijurisdictional practice group working on it. We’ve seen progress in Illinois, Oregon and Colorado, but it is a slow process.

Q. What else are you working on?

A. Outside the U.S., pro bono is very challenging. The more developed countries look to government to provide a lot of what we look to foundations and charities to provide. And less developed countries are struggling to create transparent legal systems and [the concept of pro bono] seems so far beyond that. But GE is starting a pro bono project in Mexico, and there are legal departments in Australia and the UK starting to look at this.

Q. Do you think the economic crisis will curtail corporate pro bono?

A. Even in those legal departments that have undergone a reduction in force, we have seen a continuation, even a growth, of pro bono. When you feel most under the gun, you want to remind yourself who you are. You want to have a connection with your colleagues and a chance to take a breath and get away from the big headline in the Wall Street Journal that affects your company.