Dear Pro Bono Institute Members, Friends and Supporters,

Thank you for visiting the Pro Bono Institute website. As Chair of the Board of Directors of the Pro Bono Institute, I want to introduce you to the role and impact of the Institute.

Much of the Pro Bono Institute’s work focuses on strengthening pro bono by fully engaging and communicating the creativity, commitment, and innovation of the major law firms and legal departments with whom we work. Our resources and activities – a wide range of highly respected training programs, research and surveys, best practices profiles, topical monographs, consultative services – are designed to facilitate peer-to-peer transmission of information and expertise. Before the creation of the Institute, law firms and legal departments seeking to establish a new pro bono program or to enhance an existing effort had to do without a “one-stop” resource that could guide them to useful examples and cutting-edge projects and offer reliable and credible information on “industry standards” in pro bono.

As the Institute has matured, however, we have, while continuing to serve as the hub for peer-to-peer guidance, assumed another highly important role – that of an independent evaluator that objectively assesses and carefully weighs the value and effectiveness of peer efforts rather than simply a neutral source of information. We all appreciate the value, but also the limitations of peer-to-peer guidance.

The Pro Bono Institute has emerged as a vitally important independent voice, respectful of the great value of law firm and corporate counsel perspectives, but also willing, at all times, to challenge conventional wisdom and to demand rigorous empirically-based research and analysis. The Pro Bono Institute follows: we effectively use the knowledge and wisdom of the law firm and corporate leaders who serve on our advisory groups and we reach out to secure the perspective and expertise of the growing number of pro bono leaders with whom we work.

But the Institute also leads. Whether framing a definition of pro bono, questioning the value of popular, but not always proven, developments in pro bono, maintaining a long-term vision of pro bono, and focusing, always, on the substance of pro bono work and the needs of pro bono clients, the Institute maintains and preserves, for all of us, the integrity of pro bono.

I am proud of the strength, courage, and rigor of the Institute’s work and amazed at our reach and impact. I congratulate the legal departments and law firms that have risen to the Law Firm Pro Bono Challenge® and the Corporate Pro Bono Challenge^SM. In setting this benchmark and supporting the work of the Pro Bono Institute, you are maintaining our capacity to probe and question, to serve as an honest broker, to bring out the best in all of us.

James W. Jones
Chair, Pro Bono Institute Board of Directors