Pro Bono

In 2023 and for the fifth consecutive year, 100% of our nearly 2,000 lawyers met our Pro Bono Challenge by devoting at least 20 billable hours—with many far exceeding that number—to pro bono work. This extraordinary dedication across our entire firm is one of our deepest sources of pride.

Thousands of lawyers and staff across our firm come together every year for a focused period of special programming tackling a critical issue that affects our pro bono clients.

As a law firm, we’re determined to use our power to ensure justice. In the somber aftermath of George Floyd's murder at the hands of a police officer—against the backdrop of a rising tide of intolerance, inequality, and brutality—Morgan Lewis resolved to do our part to answer the call. We launched Mobilizing for Equality (MFE) to reflect our commitment to more forcefully combat racial injustice and unite in the movement for equality for all. Since that time, 14 MFE working groups have been executing on substantive racial justice projects. This includes our Racial Justice Pro Bono working group, which provides pro bono legal services to racially disadvantaged individuals and legal services organizations with racial justice missions.

We sponsor law school graduates for fellowships at Equal Justice Works, a nonprofit bringing together an expansive network of law students, lawyers, legal services organizations, and supporters to instill a lifelong dedication to public service and equal justice. For example, one of our fellows is helping to expand immigration services for older teens in an underserved region of Washington State through direct representation, community outreach, and pro bono partnerships.

Our firm catalyzes associate secondment opportunities to nonprofit organizations within our network of established partners. During a seven-month secondment at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, for example, one of our associates supported litigation defending the results of the 2020 election in several states and helped safeguard access to voter registration while another contributed to the creation of an assistance program for nonprofits needing help navigating commercial leasing issues.

Our responsibility toward society, and the opportunity to be of service, is one we take very seriously—and have since our firm’s founding 150 years ago.

The Innovative Lawyers in Access to Justice & Civil Rights Award recognizes Morgan Lewis’s representation of enlistees in the US Department of Defense program Military Accessions Vital to the National Interest (MAVNI) and the firm’s role in establishing a two-year fellowship to help guide noncitizen soldiers and veterans through the naturalization process.

Morgan Lewis’s commitment to providing pro bono legal services has again earned the firm high rankings in The American Lawyer’s 2023 Pro Bono Scorecard, an annual survey of pro bono efforts at major US law firms.

Committed to doing work for the public good, Morgan Lewis is donating pro bono resources to the Campus Antisemitism Legal Line (CALL), a free legal protection helpline for students who have experienced antisemitism on college campuses.

Morgan Lewis has been included among the top 25 law firms for pro bono work in the United Kingdom by Law.com International. In compiling its annual UK Pro Bono Rankings, the publication measures the total number of pro bono hours worked and percentage of lawyers who took part in pro bono matters.

A Morgan Lewis team helped Ricky Warner walk out of Louisiana’s infamous Angola State Penitentiary a free man after spending 35 years in prison due to a wrongful first-degree murder conviction in 1987.

The Ukrainian 2016 Eurovision song contest winner, Jamala, fled Kiev and has been singing to raise money for her home country. Our London team provided urgent immigration counsel to enable the singer to perform at Concert for Ukraine.

A Morgan Lewis team won a pair of critical court rulings validating the US citizenship of children born abroad to married same-sex couples. The rulings have helped the couples and their children enjoy the same rights as other citizens.

More than 650,000 Pennsylvanian households that struggled to make ends meet during COVID-19 benefited from a significant settlement that Morgan Lewis and a nonprofit reached with the US government.

Our litigation team secured another victory in a string of federal court cases against the US government, including three class actions, on behalf of thousands of non-citizen US Army soldiers and veterans seeking to secure their lawful right to US citizenship based on their military service.

Lawyers in our Brussels office are partnering with Bureaux d’aide Juridique, the Brussels Bar, and Vluchtelingenwerk Vlaanderen, a nongovernmental organization supporting people who are fleeing war, violence, and persecution, to provide pro bono assistance to displaced individuals in Belgium.

More than 80 years following his death, thanks to the work of a team of Morgan Lewis lawyers, Private Albert King, United States Army, was finally awarded the recognition and military honors that he had earned through his military service and his death.

A significant early success of our Mobilizing for Equality (MFE) initiative was our collaboration with the Quattrone Center for the Fair Administration of Justice at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School to review police practices in Madison, Wisconsin—the scene of protests and violence in the wake of the 2020 murder of George Floyd by a Minnesota police officer.

Morgan Lewis & ROCKius, our firm band, helped raise more than $95,000, beating out six other law firm bands at the Banding Together to End Domestic Violence concert and securing the coveted Judge’s Choice Award in support of the Family Violence Appellate Project (FVAP).

Working with the Pennsylvania Innocence Project, a Morgan Lewis team secured the release of Pennsylvanian Andrew Swainson, who spent more than 30 years in prison for a murder he did not commit.

A Morgan Lewis team working with three nonprofits secured a landmark settlement that overhauled Missouri’s administration of psychotropic medications to as many as 13,000 foster children.

Lawyers from our London office heeded the call for help from the UK’s National Centre for Domestic Violence following an alarming rise in domestic violence as COVID-19 triggered lockdowns in many countries.

The Innovative Lawyers in Access to Justice & Civil Rights Award recognizes Morgan Lewis’s representation of enlistees in the US Department of Defense program Military Accessions Vital to the National Interest (MAVNI) and the firm’s role in establishing a two-year fellowship to help guide noncitizen soldiers and veterans through the naturalization process.

Human Rights First honors Morgan Lewis with its 2023 Marvin E. Frankel Award for the firm’s pro bono efforts to support Afghan asylum seekers.

Morgan Lewis has been honored by Legal Services for Children with the organization’s Excellence in Pro Bono Service award in recognition of the significant pro bono contributions of the firm’s California lawyers in 2021.

Of counsel Laura Lerner was recognized by the Youth Advocacy Foundation as its inaugural Pro Bono Attorney of the Year. The organization works to defend the education rights of Massachusetts’ most vulnerable youth.