The Pro Bono Initiative (PBI) was established in 2001 to encourage the District of Columbia's largest law firms to increase their pro bono legal services. At that time 41 firms committed to provide pro bono legal services at specified levels; agreed to a benchmark of either 3 percent or 5 percent of total client hours, or 60 or 100 hours for every lawyer in the firm; and agreed to report their progress annually to the Pro Bono Program. These standards were created by and are used with permission from the Pro Bono Institute and modeled on the Institute's Law Firm Pro Bono Challenge.
After a 2007-2008 campaign to expand the program, 23 new firms joined PBI, bringing to 64 the total number of participating firms.
Reporting year 2009 marked not only PBI's eighth year, but also the first time that many of the new firms have reported their results. All 64 of the eligible firms responded to the survey, but not to every question. Following are some of the highlights of the report:
Sixty-two of the 64 firms reported on their total number of pro bono hours. According to the survey, the firms contributed approximately 984,000 pro bono hours, or an average of 97 hours per attorney.
Fifty-three firms provided enough information to verify whether they met their commitments; of these, 44 firms did reach their commitment goals. On average, the 53 firms reporting the details of their results had pledged to have pro bono hours account for 3.2 percent of billable hours, but they actually contributed 5.5 percent.
Based upon the responses of 63 firms, 4,318 attorneys each contributed more than 50 hours of pro bono work in 2009. The 29 firms that responded in both 2008 and 2009 reported they contributed 707,653 pro bono hours in 2009, compared to 690,071 in 2008.
The report also reveals the answers to survey questions about the pro bono coordinator on staff, budgeting for pro bono, pro bono hours credited toward billable/bonus targets, number of full-time employees, and pro bono requirements.
Some firms also describe their techniques and innovations for promoting pro bono participation work within their offices such as award ceremonies, evaluations, newsletters, service events, sponsorship of projects, training, and Web sites.
The reports will be sent to the participating law firms and to the four federal and local chief judges.