In-house pro bono efforts were a key theme of the 2008 Association of Corporate Counsel Annual Meeting held in Seattle from October 19-22.

On October 20, 2008, Corporate Pro Bono (CPBO), a national partnership project of the Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC) and the Pro Bono Institute, hosted its eleventh annual Pro Bono Clinic. Co-sponsored by CPBO and ACC, with training provided by Microsoft Corporation and Intel Corporation, the clinic attracted its largest-ever attendance – attorneys from a wide variety of legal departments across the United States.

The clinic was split into two sessions designed to instruct in-house counsel on the skills needed to provide pro bono services. The first session, hosted by Lydia Tamez from Microsoft Corporation and Juliann Bildhauer from Volunteer Advocates for Immigrant Justice (VAIJ), focused on immigrant communities and provided attendees a sense of the knowledge and information to serve the legal needs of those communities.  The second session, hosted by Donald Conant from Intel Corporation and Keith Wurster from Baker and McKenzie, provided training on the legal needs of children in special education matters.  Participants received CLE credit for both sessions, and both teams of trainers, Microsoft and VAIJ and Intel and Baker & McKenzie, provided comprehensive training materials for attendees.  In addition, CPBO distributed to attendees a national list of legal service providers that offer immigration and special education pro bono opportunities.

The participants represented over twenty legal departments, including Alstom Transport, AT&T Inc., The Western Union Company, T-Mobile USA, Inc., Dell Inc., Murphy Oil Corporation, Aerojet-General Corporation, Weyerhaeuser Company, SonoSite, Inc., Cubist Pharmaceuticals, Inc., and LexisNexis Group.

CPBO met with many members of the in-house legal community throughout the meeting to address their interest in corporate pro bono programs and opportunities.

On the second day of programming, ACC hosted the Annual Meeting Plenary Luncheon, at which Laura Stein, Senior Vice President & General Counsel of The Clorox Company, immediate past Chair of the ACC Board of Directors, and Co-Chair of the CPBO Advisory Board, highlighted the benefits of legal departments engaging in pro bono.

Developed by Corporate Pro Bono
A global partnership project of the Pro Bono Institute and the Association of Corporate Counsel
www.cpbo.org