Pro Bono

Law firms are defined by the values they espouse and the clients they serve. O’Melveny’s commitment to excellent client service extends well beyond corporate boardrooms to the most underrepresented segments of society, through our vibrant and award-winning pro bono practice.

From its inception, O’Melveny has channeled the creativity and passion of its lawyers into public interest efforts that benefit the poor and powerless in local communities and beyond. The Firm’s unique expertise and skill has often led to remarkable and far-reaching results. For example, our successful defense of Interest on Lawyers’ Trust Accounts (IOLTA) programs before the US Supreme Court is illustrative of the impact our lawyers can have on issues of great public significance. IOLTA, the country’s second largest source of financial support for legal services for the poor, was at risk of losing more than US$200 million of funding, accounting for over 15% of the annual budget for indigent legal services nationwide. In a precedent-setting case, our efforts preserved a range of benefits for society’s most vulnerable members, ranging from health care access to protection against homelessness.

Through our pro bono practice structure, each of our offices is able to respond quickly and effectively to the ever-changing needs of local low-income communities. The scope of our pro bono work is as wide and diverse as the scope of our commercial work. We assist individuals and nonprofit organizations using a wide array of expertise, including litigation, labor and employment, tax, corporate transactions, appellate, criminal defense, mergers and acquisitions, bankruptcy, contract and lease negotiations, and other types of sophisticated engagements.

Lawyers at O’Melveny & Myers also work with legal services organizations to represent indigent clients in legal areas outside of our commercial practices. Our attorneys regularly engage in high-impact litigation and transactional pro bono work in a wide variety of areas, including immigration, housing, civil rights, the arts, children’s rights, education, Holocaust survivor benefits, family law/domestic violence, nonprofit incorporation, public benefits, and other areas.

We have chosen to focus much of our transactional pro bono efforts on the microfinance field, taking a national leadership role in this burgeoning movement. Microfinance transactions combat extreme poverty by helping impoverished women and families all over the world to secure small but crucial loan proceeds, allowing them to start businesses that can—and have been—impacting their lives in the most profound ways.

Key Facts

• The Firm’s strong pro bono commitment is reflected in our long-standing policy that gives hours devoted to pro bono matters the same consideration as commercial chargeable hours when evaluating the overall performance and compensation of attorneys and paralegals, with no maximum limit imposed on the number of pro bono hours considered for such purposes.
  
  
• As a signatory to the Pro Bono Institute's Pro Bono Challenge, as well as pro bono performance pledges made to various bar associations, the Firm strives to devote not less than 3% of all billable hours to pro bono services annually, and we often exceed that target. In 2007, our attorneys volunteered over 84,000 hours to pro bono matters, averaging more than 90 hours per lawyer and accounting for approximately 5% of our total billable time. In 2008, our pro bono work continued to increase as our lawyers devoted more than 100,000 hours, accounting for over 6% of our total billable time, to helping the underserved.
  
  
• Under our Pro Bono Initiative launched in 2006, new lawyers in all US offices are required to handle at least one pro bono matter in their first year at the Firm. Each partner is expected to supervise at least one pro bono matter every year, and all attorneys are encouraged to perform at least 50 hours of pro bono work annually.
  
  
• In 2008, approximately 70% of our lawyers did at least 20 hours of pro bono work.
  
  
• O’Melveny has appointed a firm-wide partner-in-charge and a full-time managing counsel of pro bono. David Lash, our managing counsel for public interest and pro bono services, was named a 2006 “Attorney of the Year” by California Lawyer magazine. He has also been recognized as a “Super Lawyer” for the last five years in a survey published in Los Angeles magazine.
  
  
• Our attorneys sit on the boards of major legal services organizations in every US city in which the Firm practices.
  
  
• Our Community Legal Services Committee, comprised of designated pro bono partners and other firm leaders, regularly convenes to review all proposed pro bono matters, to discuss pro bono policy issues, and to keep the Firm focused on continued excellence in our pro bono efforts. Each office also has a pro bono partner and a pro bono committee which focus on pro bono performance at the local level.
  
  
• In 1929, John O’Melveny, the son of the Firm’s founder, helped establish and served as the president of The Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, the oldest and largest provider of free legal services to the poor in California.
  
  
• We are a founding member of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that grew out of President John F. Kennedy’s 1963 request to have major US law firms address the issue of racial discrimination.
  
  
• In 2005, we served as both consultant to and editor of an international feasibility study about how to improve investigations and prosecutions of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. Prepared on behalf of The Center for International Peace Organizations, an O’Melveny client, the study was requested by the governments of Finland, Germany, Liechtenstein, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.
  
  
• Our appellate team is known for handling high-profile pro bono matters, including precedent-setting cases before the US Supreme Court. These matters include District of Columbia v. Heller, a case raising the question of whether the District of Columbia's long-standing ban on handguns violates the Second Amendment, and Cuellar v. United States, a matter concerning the proper interpretation of the federal money laundering statute.

Awards & Recognitions

• Bet Tzedek Legal Services honored O’Melveny at its annual dinner in January 2008. The Firm received the Rose L. Schiff Commitment to Justice Award for handling significant cases for Bet Tzedek and working with the organization to develop cutting-edge community programs for the underserved poor.
  
  
• In July 2008, The Association of the Bar of the City of New York presented a team of our attorneys with the Thurgood Marshall Award for representing clients sentenced to death in a Section 1983 civil rights challenge to lethal injection in Arizona.
  
  
• The Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area honored O'Melveny at its annual luncheon in January 2008, giving the Firm its "Special Homelessness Advocacy Award."
  
  
• In recognition of O’Melveny’s pro bono contributions to the San Francisco Symphony, the Firm was recognized at the "Corporate Council" level for the symphony’s 2007 - 2008 season.
  
  
• The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) honored our work on MALDEF’s appeal to the US Supreme Court in the Texas redistricting case, G.I. Forum of Texas v. Perry.
  
  
• The Firm received a Civic Commendation Award from the mayor of Redondo Beach in recognition of O’Melveny’s outstanding pro bono contributions to the city through the Trial Advocacy Prosecution Program.
  
  
• The Firm and several of our attorneys received awards for outstanding pro bono service at the Legal Aid Society of New York’s Pro Bono Awards ceremony in October 2008.
  
  
• Lamp Community, a nationally recognized nonprofit organization, honored O’Melveny with its "Friend of Lamp Community Award 2007" for pro bono assistance with a difficult and time-consuming contract dispute.
  
  
• O’Melveny was recognized at the Asian American Justice Center’s 10th Annual American Courage Awards ceremony in Washington, DC.
  
  
• The Constitutional Rights Foundation of Orange County honored O'Melveny for actively contributing to the success of the organization’s 2006 - 2007 Mock Trial Competition.
  
  
• The Humane Society of the United States honored O’Melveny for outstanding pro bono work on behalf of animals. The Firm was particularly recognized for pro bono work on an amicus brief regarding the launching of a ballot initiative to outlaw greyhound racing in Massachusetts.
  
  
• Two O’Melveny attorneys were named “Advocates of the Year” by Public Counsel in 2007 and 2008.
  
  
• In recognition of O’Melveny’s immigration pro bono work, the Los Angeles County Bar Association presented us with its first-ever Pro Bono Service Award in 2008.
  
  
• The Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless recognized the Firm at its 2007 Volunteer Appreciation Reception. O’Melveny was recognized for its "extraordinary efforts to make justice a reality for those struggling with homelessness."