Global Corporate Pro Bono Map

Mon, 31 Jul 2017 14:48 PM
Author: Latham & Watkins and Thomson Reuters Foundation
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Corporate pro bono has seen a dramatic rise in recent years - more and more legal departments around the world are volunteering their time and expertise to serve disadvantaged communities, educate the public about the legal profession and provide assistance to social impact organizations. With their legal skills, business acumen and broad geographic reach, corporate legal departments are well placed to make an exceptional contribution to pro bono services globally.

Many companies have established structured and sophisticated pro bono programs for their legal departments, but some in-house counsel still face real barriers to engaging in pro bono, particularly in countries where the practice of pro bono is incipient. It can be challenging, for example, to identify suitable projects and clients and there is often uncertainty around regulatory and insurance requirements.

TrustLaw’s Global Corporate Pro bono Initiative is dedicated to breaking down these remaining barriers and supporting the growth of corporate pro bono around the world. TrustLaw works with corporate legal departments to build, strengthen and expand their pro bono programmes, and facilitates access to high quality, high impact pro bono work with organisations at the forefront of social change.

As part of this Initiative, Trustlaw develops and provides access to tools and resources for managing global pro bono programmes, including this new Global Corporate Pro bono Map. The Map is the result of a remarkable collaborative effort –with contributions from over 30 law firms and corporate legal departments in more than 50 jurisdictions–, and is intended to help corporate legal departments navigate the educational, regulatory, licensing and insurance requirements for local and foreign-qualified in-house lawyers delivering pro bono services where they work.

We hope the Map will inspire in-house lawyers across the world to do more pro bono work, help bridge the access to justice gap by volunteering to serve communities in need and support organizations working to address some of the greatest challenges of our time.

For more practical resources targeted at in-house lawyers, take a look at our corporate counsel brochure and our guide  to forming successful pro bono partnerships between in-house and external counsel.