CBA Record September-October 2025

PRO BONO WEEK 2025 – JUSTICE CAN’T WAIT

The Evolution of Pro Bono Pro bono publico, or free legal services for the “public good,” ini tially involved private lawyers giving their services away for free to persons of limited means, usually criminal suspects and defen dants, to establish or vindicate those individuals’ constitutional rights. Early pro bono successes included U.S. Supreme Court decisions Gideon v. Wainright (1963) (holding criminal defen dants are entitled to services of an attorney paid by the state); Escobedo v. Illinois (1964) (holding a criminal suspect has the right to advice of counsel from the time of arrest); and Miranda v. Arizona (1966) (requiring the state to advise of the right against self-incrimination and to an attorney). Many pro bono engagements entered into after these decisions were handed down had positive impacts on persons of limited means. Over time, the meaning of pro bono engagements came to be extended well beyond repre senting persons in criminal proceedings or indeed in litigation at all. For example, lawyers volunteered their services to help people with civil legal issues, incorporate not-for-profit organizations, assist with guardianships, and a variety of other worthy matters. In fact, more than 60 years ago, Chicago Volunteer Legal Services was one of the first programs in the country where lawyers in private practice could volunteer to help people in need on a variety of “bread and butter” civil legal issues. Over time, recognizing the key role pro bono ser vices could play in increasing access to justice, orga nizations such as The Chicago Bar Foundation issued guidance to lawyers and legal professionals in a variety of practice settings (law firms, corporate legal depart ments, government) about how to institutionalize their pro bono practices and shared resources and best practices. (See chicagobarfoundation.org/pro-bono/) A strong pro bono movement took hold, particularly here in Chicago. Corporate clients began not only to encourage their in house lawyers to engage in pro bono work but to ask their out side law firms about their commitment to such engagements. In 2006, the Illinois Supreme Court amended Rule 756 to require lawyers to report their pro bono hours as part of their annual ARDC registration. Pro bono emerged as an important complement to nonprofit legal aid programs to provide free legal services to people of lim ited means. Legal aid organizations partnered with outside pro bono counsel to extend the reach of their programs and the number of clients of limited means they could serve. Law firms and corporate legal departments partnered as never before on clinics that offered free legal services to local community mem bers and nonprofits and created pro bono departments. Govern ment agencies established pro bono programs of their own, and law schools got in the mix by encouraging students to volunteer their time to needy clients and worthy causes. Lawyers competed for the best pro bono opportunities; professional development staff realized that some of their lawyers’ best learning came on

pro bono matters; and volunteer lawyers described their pro bono engagements as some of the most rewarding work of their careers. Pro bono engagements occasionally created controversy within participating law firms or legal departments, or between law firms and their paying clients. Some law firms resisted provid ing their lawyers billable credit for pro bono work. Firm leaders sometimes voiced concern about “positional conflicts” that might be created through their lawyers’ pro bono work. Corporate legal departments sometimes had to select pro bono opportunities that aligned with the priorities of their C-suite bosses. But by and large, these controversies were successfully navigated, and pro bono work flourished here and elsewhere.

The Jolt of 2025 Most of us who spent years promoting pro bono legal services were thus surprised when the new presidential administration began to threaten some of the country’s largest law firms because of their pro bono work. On March 25, 2025, the White House issued an executive order entitled “Addressing Risks from Jenner & Block.” The order accused a local pro bono champion of engaging in “harmful activity through their powerful pro bono practices, earmarking hundreds of millions of their clients’ dollars for destructive causes, that often directly or indirectly harm their own clients.” The firm’s security clearances were pulled, and the firm and its clients were barred from government contracts and federal facilities. We were even more surprised a few weeks later when the administration announced that it had reached agreements that accused nine major law firms of “weaponizing the justice system” and obligated them to provide $600 million in pro bono legal services to a specific list of causes. The causes included veterans, law enforcement, first responders, other public servants, “ensur ing fairness in the justice system,” and anti-Semitism—some of which are traditional pro bono priorities, and all of which, at least potentially, could meet the definition for pro bono under some CBA RECORD 21