DLA Piper Pro Bono | Our Commitment

DLA Piper is committed to making the world a better place. The firm supports and assists pro bono service and charitable giving, though our attorneys and staff need little encouragement. We serve an incredible variety of organizations and missions.

- George J. Mitchell,
Chairman of the Global Board

We are committed to pro bono. We appreciate that every lawyer has a professional responsibility to provide free legal services to poor people, organizations that serve the indigent, and certain nonprofits, and to perform other work that benefits the community. In 2007, our US lawyers devoted over 128,000 hours to pro bono matters -- an average of approximately 67 hours per lawyer. We are committed to helping our attorneys give back to their communities as much as possible.

The firm supports this commitment by:

Encouraging all lawyers to perform pro bono work of their choice.
Requiring all attorneys to perform at least 20 pro bono hours each year.
Recognizing up to 100 hours of associate pro bono time as equivalent to billable hours for all purposes.
Specially recognizing extraordinary pro bono contributions by partners/of counsel, senior associates, junior associates, and staff/paralegals each year.
Providing a full-service pro bono program, including: (1) a full-time Pro Bono Partner and four full-time Pro Bono Counsel, all of whom are attorneys, as well as local Pro Bono Partners who dedicate time to the program; (2) at least one partner or of counsel who act as the Pro Bono Coordinators in each of our offices; and (3) a firmwide Pro Bono Committee and several local pro bono committees in our various offices.