Foley has long been committed to the principle of pro bono publico: for the public good. We encourage our attorneys to contribute their time to provide quality legal services to financially precarious nonprofit organizations. We approach pro bono matters with the same degree of respect and diligence as fee-generating legal services.Foley has adopted a firm-wide policy to support and encourage pro bono work. As a result, we logged 30,845 pro bono hours in 2005, more than double our 2003 total.
Read our Pro Bono Policy.
Our pro bono activities run the gamut of providing services to individuals, legal aid societies, or civil rights organizations to representing non-profit organizations in strategic projects and litigation matters. In recent years, our firm has provided significant representation in matters referred to us by such public interest firms as the AIDS Legal Clinic, Pro Bono Advocates, and Public Counsel.
Foley was one of the founders of the Public Interest Law Initiative (PILI), an organization that facilitates the provision of pro bono services to legal aid organizations by law students and recent law school graduates. Foley is a signatory to PILI's Pro Bono Statement of Principles and a signatory to the American Bar Association Law Firm Challenge – 60 hours per attorney per year on pro bono matters.
Along with the positive effect pro bono service has on our communities, our attorneys are exposed to experiences and areas of law, procedures, and clients that often are not available in our day-to-day work. This results in enhanced professional development and personal satisfaction opportunities for our attorneys — truly a win-win scenario for our communities, our clients, and our firm.
Foley performs work in almost every area of public interest law. A substantial portion of our work over the past two years has included immigration and asylum law as well as civil and children's rights.
