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What Counts?

6/17/2013

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Last week I had the opportunity to attend a meeting with Dean Larry Raful, who is responsible for determining which pro bono projects count for the newly-enacted 50-hour pro bono requirement for bar admission in New York. I do not envy him. The question "what counts?" was a question constantly in the forefront of my mind while I was managing a law firm pro bono program. When I first started out, I developed a chart that listed three of the definitions I encountered the most often: the American Bar Association definition, the Volunteers of Legal Service definition, and the Pro Bono Institute's definition, each of which differed just slightly from the other. Over the years, the American Lawyer, which required law firms to report their pro bono hours, adopted the Pro Bono Institute definition. After that, I basically used that definition for any/all external reporting.

It is somewhat frustrating that the new New York requirement does not use the same definition (and neither does the new reporting requirement, but that's another story), and in fact, the boundaries of "what counts?" is still evolving. The good news is that Dean Raful is thinking about it, and has been quite open to suggestions from those of us who have been in the pro bono field grappling with definitions for years. Stay tuned!
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New Pro Bono Project Highlights

6/4/2013

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  • A group of San Francisco Bay Area law firms and legal services providers recently launched the Bay Area Rural Justice Collaborative, dedicated to expanding access to legal services in rural and/or isolated communities throughout the Bay Area. This project is the first of the Association of Pro Bono Counsel's (APBCo) IMPACT Projects to launch. The IMPACT Projects are being created in response to a meeting held in Washington, D.C., in 2012 by Vice President Joe Biden, APBCo board members (including me) and senior management of the board members' firms. Several of the New York projects will be launching this fall.
  • Several large law firms have filed the first human trafficking suits in federal court as part of a large pro bono effort in conjunction with the Southern Poverty Law Center. These suits are the first in a series of federal lawsuits to prosecute multiple human trafficking and racketeering allegations against a Gulf Coast marine services company and its network of recruiters and labor brokers.
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    Laren E. Spirer, Esq. is the founder of InSpirer Consulting.

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