Inside Law Firm Pro Bono: A Mini Course for Your Future in the Public or Private Sector

Are you a 2L or 3L going to Big Law and hoping to integrate pro bono into your career?  Or are you going to nonprofit/legal services and want to learn how to partner with Big Law on pro bono projects?

David Lash and Steven Schulman, two law firm pro bono leaders with full-time pro bono roles, will share highlights from their Law Firm Economics and the Public Interest course.  They will propose the cost-benefit analysis of pro bono in a large law firm and give some insider knowledge on how the mechanics work so that you have tools to make a meaningful impact.

Lunch available at 12 noon

Program to begin 12:20

1:20-1:30 Q&A

RSVP helpful but not required

This event is part of HLS’s Office of Clinical and Pro Bono Program’s annual celebration of pro bono.  Co-sponsored by the Office of Career Services.

If you or an event participant requires disability-related accommodations, please contact HLS Accessibility Services at accessibility@law.harvard.edu two weeks in advance of the event.

Presenters:

David Lash, David Lash is the managing counsel at O’Melveny & Meyers LLP for Pro Bono and Public Interest Services, overseeing the firm’s national and international pro bono program. His background and skills includes complex business litigation including trial and appellate representation, real estate matters, corporate governance, board relations, labor and employment, and all areas of public policy and community relations. He has a lengthy history of representing clients in real estate litigation matters, including environmental and CEQA litigation on behalf of regional real estate developers.

Lash manages O’Melveny’s national and international pro bono program. He helped initiate a formal launch of the firm’s long-time pro bono program by drafting policies and procedures and creating a firm-wide infrastructure from which has grown a world-renowned pro bono program. Under Lash’s leadership, O’Melveny’s pro bono program has received the American Bar Association’s prestigious Pro Bono Publico Award and consistently has been recognized as one of the Top 10 pro bono programs in the United States. Prior to joining O’Melveny, David was executive director of Bet Tzedek, one of the largest and most successful non-profit legal services agencies in the United States.

Steven Schulman, Steve Schulman maintains a substantive practice in many areas of public interest law, including human rights, immigration, assistance to military personnel and poverty law matters. He has handled dozens of asylum and other immigration cases, with a particular emphasis on complex matters, such as those involving the application of terrorism-related grounds of inadmissibility.

Schulman joined Akin Gump in 2006 as its first full-time pro bono partner. Since he joined the firm, participation in the pro bono practice has increased substantially in every office and across every practice group; Akin Gump lawyers now devote an average of nearly 90 hours annually to pro bono client matters. Under his leadership, the firm has built strong relationships with local and national legal services organizations and has developed experience in several areas of pro bono practice, such as representing charter schools, working with refugees and victims of human rights abuses, and providing legal counsel to military personnel and their families.

Schulman leads and supervises the firm’s Pro Bono Scholars Program. Started in Washington in 2008, this two-summer program, now in Dallas, Los Angeles, Washington, New York, and Houston, identifies and develops top law students to become the next generation of Akin Gump attorneys committed to building the firm’s pro bono practice.