Pro Bono Annual Report 2006: A Breakout Year
2006 was a truly outstanding pro bono year for Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLP. Firm attorneys, summer associates, and legal assistants worked more than 22,334 hours on more than 140 active matters during 2006. Overall, the firm devoted approximately 64 hours per full-time attorney to pro bono legal services, well exceeding the 30-hour minimum suggested by Volunteers of Legal Services, a public service organization created to encourage pro bono efforts by major New York law firms, and we exceeded our pledge under the Law Firm Pro Bono Challenge to devote three percent of our billable hours to pro bono legal services. The firm and its lawyers have been widely recognized for these efforts — including, this year, with the ABA’s John Minor Wisdom Public Service and Professionalism Award and the National Law Journal’s Pro Bono Award. Read about
honors and accolades.
Our pro bono activities last year covered the usual wide range: Our attorneys had the satisfaction of helping survivors of torture and persecution from Colombia, Ivory Coast, Haiti, Pakistan, Tibet, and other countries seek asylum; successfully challenging a restrictive statute that had chilled nonpartisan voter registration activities in Florida; working with Lambda Legal to seek equal marriage rights for same-sex couples in New York; advocating for clients detained without due process at Guantánamo; and attaining important results for more than 50 nonprofit organizations devoted to such causes as helping poor New Yorkers, supporting the arts, and protecting the environment.
The links below will take you to detailed descriptions of the impressive results achieved for individuals and communities in this busy pro bono year. We hope it will inspire ideas for future pro bono endeavors by our current lawyers and those who may join us in the future.
Paul S. Pearlman Jeffrey S. Trachtman
Managing Partner Chair, Pro Bono Committee