For Immediate Release
Contact: Adam Licht, Director of Product Management, Pro Bono Net
Phone: (212) 760-2554 x486 E-mail: alicht@probono.net
MANATT, PHELPS & PHILLIPS CHOOSES PRO BONO MANAGER
NEW YORK (February 4, 2008) – Pro Bono Net, a national nonprofit organization dedicated to increasing access to justice through the innovative use of technology, today announced that Manatt, Phelps & Phillips has become the fourth customer for Pro Bono ManagerTM, its pro bono management solution for law firms. Manatt joins Weil, Gotshal & Manges, Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe and Debevoise & Plimpton in purchasing Pro Bono Manager.
Pro Bono Manager is a web-based application that enables law firms to more efficiently manage and promote their pro bono work. With law firms of all sizes increasingly emphasizing pro bono work, Pro Bono Manager helps firms meet the challenge of managing a robust pro bono program, allowing them to maximize their public service impact on the community.
“We view pro bono as an integral part of our practice,” said Cristin Zeisler, Director of Pro Bono Activities at Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, who manages the pro bono activities of the firm’s 450 attorneys across eight offices. “We give pro bono matters the same attention, staffing, resources as our commercial matters, which was a major consideration in our decision to use Pro Bono Manager to help manage our pro bono program.”
Pro Bono Manager’s customized, web-based tools enable pro bono coordinators to more efficiently handle the firm’s pro bono caseload, raise the internal profile of the firm’s pro bono program, increase volunteer participation among attorneys and the quality of support and oversight provided to them and automate the creation of reports. The service integrates data from time and billing and personnel systems with content for a firm’s attorneys. One of its benefits is that it leverages Pro Bono Net’s nationwide network of public interest legal groups to provide an unmatched source of practice materials, volunteer opportunities, training events and news.
The service is built on Microsoft’s SharePoint 2007 and SQL Reporting Services, and was developed in partnership with XMLaw, the leading provider of SharePoint intranet, extranet and search products enabling law firms to effectively use all their internal and external knowledge sources.
“Pro Bono Manager gives pro bono counsel the tools to more effectively build a high quality program,” said Mark O’Brien, Executive Director of Pro Bono Net.
Pro Bono Manager was developed by Pro Bono Net, a national nonprofit dedicated to increasing access to justice through innovative uses of technology and increased volunteer lawyer participation. Development of the product was funded in large part by a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which declared Pro Bono Net “a model for other nonprofits that are looking to create innovative, technology-based delivery systems that are sustainable over the long term.”
About Pro Bono Net
Pro Bono Net is a national nonprofit that works in close partnership with nonprofit legal organizations across the country to increase access to justice for poor and moderate-income people and other vulnerable populations. It does so through (i) supporting the innovative and effective use of technology by the nonprofit legal sector, (ii) increasing participation by volunteers, and (iii) facilitating collaborations among nonprofit legal organizations and
advocates working on similar issues or in the same region. Founded in 1998 with support from the Open Society Institute, Pro Bono Net has created a broad and powerful network of nonprofit legal organizations, courts and bar associations across the United States. This network uses two innovative web-based platforms—www.probono.net and www.lawhelp.org—to recruit and manage volunteers and provide direct information and tools for low-income communities and the organizations that serve them. For more information, please visit www.probono.net.
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