Pro Bono

At Latham & Watkins, our pro bono practice has become a hallmark of our firm. It is central to our culture and an important part of life at Latham. We recognize that as lawyers we have a duty to help ensure that the doors of justice are open to all, regardless of income, and that the practice of law includes the unique ability and responsibility to advocate for equal justice and provide needed representation to persons of limited means.

Our Program

Latham personnel volunteer thousands of hours of time and expertise to help those who might otherwise be denied access to the legal system.

• As a signatory to the Law Firm Pro Bono Challenge^TM, we have committed to provide, at minimum, the equivalent of 60 hours per US attorney per year in pro bono legal services. We have surpassed this goal every year since making the commitment.
• In 2008 alone, drawing on almost 2,000 volunteer attorneys, summer associates, paralegals and professional staff, we provided more than 250,000 hours of free legal services valued in excess of $100 million. 
• Since 2000, we have provided more than 1 million pro bono hours.

We treat our pro bono work the same as commercial work, applying the same quality standards and treating associate pro bono hours the same as commercial billable hours for purposes of evaluation and bonuses. There is no cap on pro bono hours.

Our Accomplishments

Our Pro Bono Annual Review provides a sampling of our extensive pro bono efforts and accomplishments around the globe, as well as highlights of recent awards and recognition honoring our pro bono work. Our pro bono practice is consistently considered one of the top pro bono programs among private law firms, and is as broad and diverse as the attorneys in our firm and the communities we serve. Our accomplishments include litigation, transactional and administrative successes encompassing almost every area of public interest law.

Pro Bono Highlights

Our dedication to pro bono work is a source of pride and reflects a fundamental part of our firm's culture. Here are just a few of the many pro bono activities in which our attorneys are involved: 

• Human Rights & Refugee work - Latham & Watkins has developed a premier human rights and refugee practice with an emphasis on representing unaccompanied refugee children. Latham attorneys across the world represent refugees in immigration proceedings, and pursue human rights issues and justice for immigrants through various projects such as assessments of immigration detention standards, efforts to address the trafficking of women and children, advancing principles of corporate responsibility and advocating before the European Court of Human Rights.
• Domestic Violence Prevention and Assistance - Latham & Watkins assists victims of domestic violence in obtaining restraining orders, and, for immigrant victims of domestic violence, in obtaining relief under the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). We have taken a leading role in establishing community-based domestic violence resources in some of the communities we serve, such as the Family Violence Legal Clinic in Orange County, California, and a Domestic Violence Clinic in Chicago in partnership with the Mayor's office. We also work with the California Women's Law Center's Habeas Project on behalf of incarcerated domestic violence survivors, and actively participate in other domestic violence clinics and programs, such as the San Diego Volunteer Lawyer Program Domestic Violence Clinic, the Domestic Violence Limited Scope Representation (DVLSR) project in Silicon Valley, and an extensive program with Sanctuary for Families in New York assisting immigrant domestic violence survivors.
• Pioneering Pro Bono Work in Europe and Asia - Pro bono is still in its early stages of development in much of Europe and Asia, and Latham & Watkins remains at the forefront of this development. As part of our continuing efforts, our global Pro Bono Committee created a Europe and Asia Subcommittee aimed at growing our individual European and Asian pro bono efforts into a comprehensive program. Recent initiatives include the European Pro Bono Forum (organized and sponsored by Latham and a small group of international law firms, and hosted by the Public Interest Law Institute), which was held for the first time in October, 2007 in Budapest, Hungary, bringing together law firms, NGOs and corporations from across the continent to discuss the need for the private bar to provide pro bono legal services to those indigent whose legal needs are not covered by European state-sponsored assistance. The Forum also addressed important international pro bono matters and other aspects of the developing pro bono practice in Europe.
• Disaster Relief Efforts - Since Hurricane Katrina devastated the US Gulf Coast region in August 2005, Latham & Watkins has taken several steps to aid in the recovery efforts, including representing a number of hurricane survivors in cases ranging from insurance issues to obtaining FEMA relief. The firm also has sent several teams of attorneys to the Gulf Coast to participate in on-site legal clinics organized by the Mississippi Volunteer Lawyers Project to assist survivors, and has funded two Katrina-relief Fellows providing needed legal services in the region. Attorneys in multiple Latham offices also are assisting with recovery efforts related to the 2007 San Diego wildfires, including creating handbooks containing critical resources and legal and other information to assist in recovery, and assisting with local community workshops that provide the tools necessary to initiate recovery projects.

For more examples of our pro bono work across the globe, view our most recent Pro Bono Annual Review.

Pro Bono Committee Chair

• Charles Crompton 
  
  

Pro Bono Counsel

• Amos E. Hartston