Legal departments, even those at major companies, often avoid using their lawyering talents to serve any client but their corporate client. But not 3M Co. Ivan Fong, the company’s general counsel, finds that doing pro bono work is an important way for the 260 lawyers he supervises around the globe to gain solid experience doing interesting legal work while supporting their communities at the same time.

Bay Area Corporate Counsel honorees had the sold-out crowd chuckling — and reflecting — throughout the evening at the 2018 Bay Area Corporate Counsel awards dinner on March 1 at the Four Seasons Hotel in East Palo Alto.

When Jennifer Brown isn’t working on compliance issues like food and product safety or on environmental health issues for Seattle-based Amazon.com Inc., she’s been known to spend hours at a time scouring court documents from cases involving those held behind bars in the Pacific Northwest.

PBI will present Gregory B. Jordan and the Legal Department of The PNC Financial Services Group, Inc.** (PNC) with the 2018 Laurie D. Zelon Pro Bono Award at a special luncheon on Thursday, February 22 during the 2018 PBI Annual Conference. PBI’s Zelon Award honors Judge Zelon’s leadership and her extraordinary contributions to enhancing justice for all.

The CPBO Clinic in a Box® program has come a long way since its inception as a pro bono opportunity at the Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC) Annual Meeting (AM). While it continues to be an annual pro bono event for ACC AM attendees and local chapter members, the program has grown in popularity and the options have expanded.

New to in-house pro bono? Thinking about formalizing your department’s pro bono efforts, but don’t know where to start? CPBO has the answers! Join us for an exciting new program that covers all you need to know: the “Getting Started Series: How to Launch an In-House Pro Bono Program” running from March – June 2018.

PBI is honored to present the Inaugural Esther F. Lardent Hall of Fame for Excellence in Pro Bono Award to Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Supreme Court of the United States, at PBI’s Reception on February 22, 2018 at the National Museum for Women in the Arts.

PBI’s 2018 Annual Conference is just a couple of months away! This year’s substantive sessions address emerging geopolitical realities, persistent challenges faced by pro bono programs, and novel and cutting-edge issues. With an unparalleled mix of law firm, in-house, and public interest leaders – and numerous opportunities for formal and informal networking – the PBI Annual Conference also offers a compelling introduction to emerging areas of public interest law and potential projects.

Typically, Marcus Ferguson can be found at his desk in Allstate Corp.’s Northbrook, Illinois, headquarters helping his company navigate its way through insurance-related bills and regulations. But as of late, he’s spent a fair amount of time in a very different kind of environment—at a local courthouse helping victims of domestic violence.

Five years ago Eric Kobrick, deputy general counsel at American International Group, Inc. (AIG), played an integral role in starting a formal pro bono program for the several hundred employees in AIG’s Global Legal Compliance and Regulatory function to provide legal services to non-profit organizations and persons of limited means.