To make legal advice and the legal system more accessible to all, Reed Smith provides pro bono legal services in the communities where our offices are located. Attorneys and staff members alike lend their talents in dozens of ways, and contribute their skills on hundreds of pro bono matters and community service initiatives.
As an international firm, we see our communities as including, as well, those areas of the developing world where the need for legal assistance is also great. Reed Smith's contributions to pro bono and community service bring the members of our firm closer together, and deepen our understanding of the communities in which we live.
Pro Bono
Reed Smith is a proud charter signatory to the Pro Bono Institute's Law Firm Pro Bono Challenge, devoting three percent of our billable time to pro bono work. We are also a founding member of Advocates for International Development and a signatory to the United Kingdom Joint Protocol for Pro Bono Work.
In 2007, 67 percent of our U.S. attorneys did pro bono work valued—if expressed at normal billable rates—at $23 million. Our attorneys performed more than 55,000 pro bono hours in 2007 and made key structural advances looking to the future. We are proud to have received recognition and awards for our pro bono efforts:
- The American Bar Association's Section of Litigation presented to our Pro Bono Counsel Jayne Fleming its 2008 John Minor Wisdom Award for outstanding pro bono service for her advocacy in gender-based asylum cases and her formation and leadership of the Reed Smith Human Rights Team.
- The UK's Lawyer magazine named several Reed Smith Richards Butler attorneys as its "Pro Bono Team of the Year" 2007 for their efforts in funding and supporting Advocates for International Development (A4ID), which in two short years has become the pro bono leader in the London legal community in fighting poverty in developing nations.
- The American Diabetes Association honored Reed Smith as a "Diabetes Champion" in 2007 for our commencement and prosecution, on behalf of parents of California schoolchildren, of a pro bono action against the California Department of Education. As seen in headlines around the world, the suit settled under terms obligating all California public schools to provide all schoolchildren having diabetes with healthcare as needed during the school day.
- Reed Smith received an “Adoption Excellence” Award from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for providing legal assistance that has now allowed more than 900 abused and neglected children to be placed into permanent homes.
Community Service
Our lawyers and staff provide community service on many fronts:
- We help nonprofits merge so they can pool their resources.
- We resolve real estate issues so that nonprofit organizations can have a home.
- We serve on the boards and committees of more than 500 nonprofit organizations.
- We collect cell phones for battered women, and almost-new and never-used toys for children with no toys.
- We repair houses of elderly and disabled people.
- We spend one-on-one time with children – reading and tutoring – to help them raise their reading levels and continue to succeed.
- We serve as mentors to high school students in at-risk communities.
- We received the "Platinum Award" for our contribution to the United Way.
- We raise funds and participate in various Walks, Runs, and Rides that benefit charitable causes.
Reed Smith is proud of the contributions lawyers and staff make in the areas of pro bono legal work and community service. Leading Reed Smith in this effort is our Director of Pro Bono and Community Service and our fulltime Senior Pro Bono Counsel, as well as fulltime Pro Bono Counsel. In the United Kingdom, our leaders are our Pro Bono Partner, Europe and Middle East together with our fulltime Pro Bono and Community Manager.
Read more about our Pro Bono & Community Support work featured on the front page of the August 9, 2007 issue of USA TODAY by clicking here.