6.1 Evaluation of Attorney Pro Bono Work
6.2 Evaluation of the Pro Bono Program

6.1 Evaluation of Attorney Pro Bono Work

Attorneys who engage in pro bono work should be evaluated with the same frequency and in the same manner as attorneys who work on commercial matters. Even in firms where attorneys are not regularly evaluated, pro bono evaluations should be conducted annually or more frequently.  This not only rewards high quality pro bono work, but also provides constructive criticism, to help ensure that attorneys provide high quality legal services to their pro bono—and other—clients (see Annex 5, “Format of Attorney Pro Bono Work Evaluation”).  As discussed above, attorney-generated status reports can assist supervising partners and pro bono coordinators in their assessments of pro bono work (see Section 3.5.2).

6.2 Evaluation of the Pro Bono Program

In addition to individual attorney evaluation, a firm’s pro bono committee should evaluate the firm’s pro bono program periodically (see Section 2.3.3(f)).  If no committee exists, the pro bono coordinator or chair should designate who will evaluate the program’s performance and suggest possible improvements.

In order to conduct a pro bono program evaluation, the evaluator(s) ideally should have all relevant quantitative information available, specifically:

• total number of pro bono hours for the year;
• number and percentage of associates, counsel, and partners that performed at least a particular number of hours of pro bono work during the year;
• average number of pro bono hours per attorney during the year;
• pro bono hours as a percentage of billable hours;
• all of the above, by practice groups within offices;
• data regarding practice groups whose lawyers did on average less than the office average of billable work and also did less than the office or firm average of pro bono work;
• number of pro bono clients served during the year;
• number of hours devoted to each pro bono client/matter during the year;
• list of pro bono matters categorized by type;
• list of pro bono matters referred to firm by institutional partnerships;
• list of other sources of pro bono opportunities; and
• the effectiveness, or lack thereof, of any “impact” or “signature” pro bono projects.

Using this information, firms can analyze the quantitative aspects of their pro bono programs, and along with discussions with or anonymous surveys of lawyers, can determine whether the firms are fulfilling their pro bono goals, whether partners are actively participating, and whether the institutional partnerships have been effective in providing interesting pro bono opportunities.

Firms can use their evaluations to make appropriate adjustments to improve their pro bono programs, engage in new pro bono partnerships, modify the supervisory structure, or seek new incentives for attorney participation.