New Corporate Pro Bono Opportunity
For Legal Services Corporation Grantees

As a Legal Services Corporation grantee, your program is invited to participate in CorporateProBono.Org, an exciting new venture designed to exponentially increase the amount of pro bono work performed by in-house counsel and to assist legal services and pro bono programs in publicizing and placing pro bono matters with in-house lawyers.

CPBO, a joint initiative of the American Corporate Counsel Association (ACCA) and the Pro Bono Institute at Georgetown University Law Center (PBI), includes a web site launched in October, 2000 that will allow corporate counsel to search for volunteer opportunities and locate tools, information, and resources concerning pro bono participation that are targeted to their unique skills, needs, and practice setting Legal services and pro bono programs will also be able to access information on the special concerns and interests of corporate in-house lawyers.

In addition, LSC-funded programs that provide quality control, training, and support to volunteers may become CPBO network partners. Network partners will have the capacity to quickly and easily post a program description as well as information about current pro bono matters that need volunteers. Pro bono projects can include one-on-one representation, clinics, counseling legal clients, transactional pro bono work, or other client services. Those LSC grantees that meet CPBO’s posting standards and become network partners will receive special access to the site which will enable them to edit, update, and add and subtract information and pro bono postings on their own with a minimum of time and effort. They will also receive regular reports from CPBO on how their postings are doing, as well as additional information on corporate pro bono trends. Many programs would welcome the opportunity to tap the volunteer resources of in-house legal departments, but lack the contacts or information needed to make that connection. CPBO is an electronic introduction service that permits legal services programs to "market" themselves to thousands of potential in-house volunteers in a matter of minutes (the ACCA web site, with which CPBO is being integrated, currently receives more than 2.5 million "hits" each month).

To post a profile of your program and/or a description of current pro bono opportunities and projects, simply go to www.cpbo.org and complete the appropriate form. If you have any questions or comments about CPBO or the posting process, please contact us at cpbo@probonoinst.org.

CPBO also welcomes submissions of substantive handbooks or manuals that you have developed on poverty law topics that, in your experience, have proven useful for volunteers. While the CPBO site is not designed to serve as a comprehensive source of information about poverty law and public interest practice, corporate counsel have requested that we place on the site some of the best examples of the types of training materials available from network partner programs. If your materials are included on the site, we will, of course, credit your program and encourage CPBO site visitors to learn more about you. We expect that, as in-house lawyers become more familiar with and engaged in pro bono practice, they will also use the web sites of network partner programs which will be publicized on and linked to the CPBO site. One of the most effective techniques to attract corporate volunteers to your site, however, is to use CPBO to provide an example of the quality and wealth of resources your program offers. If you wish to submit a manual, handbook or other substantive/training document for posting to the CPBO website, simply send your materials to the CPBO staff at the Pro Bono Institute via e-mail at cpbo@probonoinst.org or by mail to Pro Bono Institute at Georgetown University Law Center, 50 F Street, NW, Suite 8300, Washington, DC 20001.

Additional Information about CorporateProBono.Org

CorporateProBono.Org (CPBO) is an exciting new venture designed to exponentially increase the amount of pro bono work performed by in-house counsel. CPBO will enable pro bono, legal services, and public interest programs to more easily and efficiently place matters and recruit volunteers from corporate legal departments and will enable law firms to solicit corporate partners for their pro bono matters and projects.

A joint initiative of the American Corporate Counsel Association (ACCA) and the Pro Bono Institute at Georgetown University Law Center (PBI), CPBO includes a web site, supported by knowledgeable staff, that will heighten the visibility and momentum of pro bono among corporate legal departments, develop, assemble, and publicize information geared to the unique needs of in-house counsel and workable models for legal department-supported pro bono efforts, and promote partnerships between legal departments and legal services providers or law firms with strong pro bono programs. Through the use of cutting-edge technology, CPBO enables legal services providers and others to quickly and easily post and update information about their programs and pro bono offerings and permits in-house lawyers to search for volunteer opportunities that are of interest to them.

No. CPBO is not in the business of recruiting pro bono in-house attorneys. It is, rather, a facilitator, making it easier for corporate counsel who are considering pro bono work and legal services providers who wish to involve more in-house counsel to seek each other out by using the power of the Internet. To date, only a few legal services providers have successfully integrated in-house lawyers into their pro bono efforts. Pro bono participation rates among in-house lawyers are low. CPBO is an easily accessible introduction service. Once providers and in-house lawyers find each other, we anticipate that they will develop their own procedures and networks for pro bono referrals and other mutually supportive programs. CPBO is a tool that helps legal department lawyers and pro bono providers take that all-important first step.

Yes, yes, yes! First, we are using cutting-edge technology that will minimize the time and complexity of the posting process. Modeled after ACCA’s successful job posting service, posting information about your program and/or about specific pro bono opportunities will require only a few minutes of your time and no special technical expertise. Will it be worth it? The American Corporate Counsel Association (ACCA) is the leading association of in-house counsel, and ACCA’s website, which will be fully integrated with the CPBO site, currently receives more than 2.5 million "hits" each month. In light of ACCA’s leadership in CPBO, we anticipate that the site will attract a steady stream of potential corporate counsel volunteers that you can access.

It is not necessary to have a website to fully utilize CPBO and its resources. And, while we would strongly prefer to receive information and materials electronically, since the CPBO staff is quite small, we will have a limited capacity to accommodate programs that lack e-mail capacity by converting their submissions into electronic postings.

If your program is an LSC grantee, ABA Pro Bono Committee-affiliated pro bono program or NLADA member, and you meet the site posting criteria (i.e., you offer training, support, and other quality support and quality control mechanisms for your pro bono matters), you may become a CPBO Network Partner. Network Partner programs will not only be able to post information directly to the CPBO website; they will have the capacity to delete, update, supplement, or otherwise amend their posting. If your program initiates a new project that uses volunteers, you can advertise that new program to a wide range of potential pro bono attorneys in one simple step. In addition, Network Partner programs will receive periodic reports on usage of the CPBO website, so that you can see how many visitors have viewed your program’s postings and check out the most popular postings to learn more about what attracts the attention of in-house lawyers.

Absolutely. One of the other benefits of the site for legal services providers is access to customized materials on issues specific to in-house pro bono. If a potential volunteer is concerned about malpractice and liability issues, you can provide her with a monograph on dealing with malpractice issues in the in-house context. If you are contacted by an attorney in a small legal department who is seeking your help in designing a pro bono program for that department, you will find examples of successful small legal department programs on the CPBO website.

The CPBO website is absolutely free for legal services providers. As a Network Partner, you will have access to all elements of this content-rich site.

CPBO is not designed to be a major source of substantive materials and manuals on poverty law and public interest practice. However, our discussions with in-house counsel have convinced us that it is important to have a sampling of manuals and training materials available on the site, so that potential volunteers can see for themselves that the support they need to do pro bono work effectively will be available to them if they volunteer. We will, of course, identify the sources of materials and provide links to sites that maintain extensive compilations of substantive materials as well. Placing a few examples of what is available on the CPBO site will encourage lawyers to travel to these other sites, and, hopefully, to become frequent visitors.

As with any pro bono program, there is always the potential for conflict of interest - i.e., a situation in which the lawyer, law firm, or legal department represents the opposing party or is advocating a contrary legal position on behalf of a client. However, for the most part there should be fewer conflicts in the corporate legal department situation, since in-house lawyers represent only one client - the corporation - in their day-to-day practice. Certainly, some times of matters - such as consumer or finance issues - may not be appropriate for certain types of corporate legal departments, such as banks. In general, however, many of the pro bono matters providers seek to place - family law cases, landlord/tenant, public benefits, education, transactional matters - will pose no conflicts problems.

CPBO will make it easier for legal services providers to contact corporate counsel on a wide range of issues. For example, if a program wants to advertise its pro bono training events and open them to corporate counsel, it can use the website to get the word out. If programs are seeking access to donated computers or other equipment, they can advertise their needs on the CPBO website. If a group of legal services providers has just launched a new statewide fundraising initiative, information about that initiative can be publicized on the website’s "newsworthy" section. If a national support center has developed a new manual that it wants to advertise for sale, the CPBO web site can promote the manual. Although the primary target audience for the CPBO website is in-house counsel, it is our goal to use that site in every way possible to benefit legal services and pro bono providers and their clients.

For more information about CPBO, contact us at cpbo@probonoinst.org.