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Doing Well and Doing Good: How and Why BigLaw Combines Profitability and Pro Bono

Topics:
  • Speech
  • Pro Bono
  • Law Firm
  • Law School

Large law firms continue to increase their pro bono commitments, delivering more than 5 million hours of free legal services annually, while profits and revenue continue to grow as well. How is this possible? Steven Schulman, Pro Bono Partner at Akin Gump, argues that the culture, structure and economics of large firms is uniquely situated to allow pro bono to thrive. Steven has been the Pro Bono Partner for Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld since 2006. He manages the firm’s world-wide pro bono practice, which devotes more than 100,000 hours annually to a range of clients, from non-profit organizations to individuals in need of protection. Steven got his start in pro bono work by representing a Nigerian family in immigration court in 1998, and has worked on human rights and refugee matters ever since. For more than a decade, he has taught courses on law firm economics and the public interest at the law schools at Georgetown, Stanford and University of Southern California. He is also an obsessive baseball fan, and the creator of the erstwhile pitching statistic Runs Prevented.

  • Contact:
    The University of Texas at Austin School of Law