Growth in pro bono work slows at top 200 U.S. firms - magazine
Thu, 8 Jul 2010 14:30 GMT
LONDON (TrustLaw) - The top 200 law firms in the United States spent more hours on pro bono work last year than in 2008, but the growth was small compared to the often double-digit increases of the previous decade, The American Lawyer magazine reported.
Last year lawyers at the firms donated 5.7 million hours of legal services to organisations or individuals otherwise unable to afford them - 2 percent more than in 2008. The average number of hours of pro bono work per lawyer remained unchanged, according to findings of a survey by the magazine.
The difficult economic climate forced many U.S. law firms to take tough cost-cutting measures last year, including layoffs.
“There’s been more turmoil and upheaval in the legal industry than at any time we can remember. Some firms struggled with pro bono, others did even better,” the magazine quoted Esther Lardent, president of The Pro Bono Institute, as saying.
Some of the biggest reductions in pro bono work were at firms traditionally most active in the field, such as Hughes Hubbard & Reed, Cravath, Swaine & Moore, Morrison & Foerster, and Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy.
“So many associates are anxious about losing their jobs in this environment,” David Stern, executive director of non-profit organisation Equal Justice Works, told The American Lawyer.
“They don’t want to work on something that isn’t helping the firm’s bottom line, unless they know that their firm considers pro bono valuable.”
Many firms view pro bono as indispensable to career development.
“Pro bono work provides extremely valuable training,” Kimball Anderson, a Winston & Strawn litigation partner who chairs the firm’s pro bono committee, was quoted as saying.
“Pro bono is definitely a useful way to spend your time, especially if you have more time to give,” he added.
Winston & Strawn lawyers spent on average 73.4 hours each on pro bono work last year - a third more than in 2008.
The American Lawyer defines the top 200 as top 200 revenue-grossing law firms, based on its own research and that by its sister publications throughout the United States.
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