3-25-2010 National:
The Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of the international news and financial services company, is introducing a new Web site to connect pro bono legal providers with nongovernmental organizations around the world.
The information on the Web site, TrustLaw Connect, will be free. It is set to launch in mid-April.
Monique Villa, CEO of the foundation, said the company has the infrastructure to create a wide-reaching information service because it has employees in 180 countries.
“We can identify the big issues in the world because of our humanitarian and media networks,” Villa said to a group of about 20 lawyers and NGO representatives last week in Washington.
To participate, lawyers and NGOs will have to apply for a membership, which will be vetted by the employees at TrustLaw Connect. Villa said the foundation will then work to match a request for legal aid with an appropriate lawyer.
According to TrustLaw Connect’s Web site, lawyers will receive e-mail alerts when new requests arise. A customizable list of pending requests will also be offered.
Alex Counts, president of the Washington-based Grameen Foundation, said information on how NGOs can operate in developing countries would benefit his foundation’s microfinance work. “Lawyers are artists who can be problem solvers for the poor,” he said.
Planning for the project began almost two years ago when Thomson, a financial data services provider, bought Reuters, an international news service. TrustLaw Connect comes on the heels of the foundation’s creation of AlertNet.org, an emergency information service that has been active in multiple recent catastrophes, including the earthquake in Haiti. ..Source..
March 25, 2010
Foundation Creating Web Site for Pro Bono Services
January 2, 2009
Pro bono popularity holds steady
There may be lawyers willing to take sex offender issue cases on a pro bono basis just to keep working.
1-2-2009 National:
Amid global economic turmoil and dwindling workflows, US lawyers are showing good spirit and using their spare time to do more pro bono work.
According to Dechert chairman Barton Winokur, at least seven of that firm's associates are expected do full-time pro bono work for about three to six months.
The associates have extra capacity due to a slowdown in structured finance work.
Cadwalader, Wickersham and Taft has similarly increased pro bono hours, while Akin Gump partner Steven Schulman said his firm's annual pro bono hours rose from 69 to 85 hours per attorney in 2007-08.
In most parts of Asia, international firms chose to leave their pro bono work to their US headquarters. One of the few exceptions was Tokyo-based Paul Hastings partner Alexander Jampel, who said that there had been a steady flow of pro bono work.
"It has been consistent with previous years. We don't plan to make staff work solely on pro bono; we just want all attorneys to work on some matters. About half of our lawyers work on pro bono and most of the partners do it, too," he said.
The move has been welcomed by the Pro Bono Institute in Washington, DC, whose president, Esther Lardent, said the increase is a change from how some firms tended to discourage pro bono before the 2001 recession. Apparently, some firms stopped giving equal credit for pro bono time and increased billable hour quotas.
The Association of the Bar of the City of New York observed increased attendance for a pro bono training session in October. Instead of an expected attendance of 80, there were 245 guests. ..News Source.. by Richard Szabo
