Lex Mundi’s Pro Bono Foundation
Reflects on First-Year Accomplishments
(HOUSTON, March 5, 2007) In the year following its establishment, the Lex Mundi Pro Bono Foundation has made significant achievements and advanced its mission to support social entrepreneurship around the globe. By the end of February 2007, the Foundation had arranged for 42 Lex Mundi member firms to provide pro bono legal services to social entrepreneurs on 109 separate projects, and its list of collaborators had grown to 16 organizations. The Lex Mundi Pro Bono Foundation was also able to secure substantial underwriting from its member firms and other benefactors to enable it to continue its work in the future.
The Lex Mundi Pro Bono Foundation, a non-profit affiliate of Lex Mundi, calls upon Lex Mundi’s unique global network of 160 top-tier commercial law firms to provide legal assistance to social entrepreneurs on a pro bono basis. Social entrepreneurs are change makers – individuals and organizations that use entrepreneurial approaches and innovative ideas to improve the lives of the poor and disenfranchised. By providing them with access to critically needed legal assistance, the Foundation joins the global social entrepreneurship movement for positive social change. The Foundation itself does not practice law. Instead, it serves as a matchmaker, introducing Lex Mundi lawyers to individual social entrepreneurs who require legal assistance.
The Lex Mundi Pro Bono Foundation has established collaborative relationships with outstanding foundations and organizations that provide sponsorship and support to the growing community of social entrepreneurs throughout the world. These relationships are designed to inform social entrepreneurs about the availability of pro bono legal services through the Foundation and the Lex Mundi network and to establish a process by which social entrepreneurs’ requests for pro bono legal services can be handled. As of February 2007, the Foundation had relationships with 16 collaborators: Ashoka Innovators for the Public & Ashoka Advocates for Social Entrepreneurs, Acumen Fund, Avina Foundation, Case Foundation, Draper Richards Foundation, Echoing Green, European Venture Philanthropy Association, Global Fund for Children, Grameen Foundation, Mercy Corps/The Phoenix Fund, Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, Social Enterprise Alliance, Summerbridge Breakthrough Alumni Network (SBAN), UN Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor, World Bank Development Marketplace, and Venture Philanthropy Partners.
The following are examples of the 109 projects staffed by Lex Mundi lawyers as a result of introductions made by the Foundation:
- Established a non-profit corporation and provided related advice for a renowned conflict resolution leader
- Helped an organization that promotes AIDS education and awareness register in African countries and address fundraising issues in the U.S.
- Assisted an Ecuadorian social entrepreneur to stop a pirated broadcast of an environmental program in the U.S.
- Drafted a complaint for a suit by a consumer organization against a transit authority
- Advised an Algerian delegation on franchising legislation to spur economic development and provide jobs in poor areas
- Provided corporate restructuring advice to a high fashion Fair Trade enterprise in London and Tokyo
- Helped a children’s rural poverty program based in the Netherlands prepare a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for roll-out of a new program in 15 developing countries
- Advised a leading supporter of social entrepreneurs about foreign investment restrictions in various developing countries
- Assisted a U.S. social entrepreneur to incorporate a subsidiary in Indonesia
- Provided loan structuring, banking, and tax advice to affordable reading glass entrepreneur, who is borrowing and then re-lending funds to an affiliate in Hyderabad, India
- Set up a governance and worldwide accreditation system organization dedicated to reduction of emissions from lead batteries
Collaborators recently characterized the services provided by the Foundation as “terrific” and “invaluable”. A social entrepreneur based in Norway said the trademark advice provided by Nörr Stiefenhofer Lutz, Lex Mundi’s member firm for Germany, was “brilliant”.
In December 2006, the Foundation established a working relationship with the prestigious UN Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor. Chaired by Madeleine Albright and Hernando de Soto, it was the first global initiative to focus specifically on the link between exclusion, poverty, and the law. Thus far, Lex Mundi firms in Bolivia, Peru, Botswana, Ghana, South Africa, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh have agreed to provide country-specific research assistance to the Commission working group. Based in part on the work product of Lex Mundi, the Commission will produce final reports in 2008 that will guide and inform policymaking and lead to important reforms.
These achievements would not have been possible without the generous support of benefactors who contributed financial resources to the Foundation. These benefactors included Lex Mundi member firms around the world, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, and the Shell Foundation.
In addition to the 109 social entrepreneurship projects the Lex Mundi Pro Bono Foundation facilitated, it also worked to inspire Lex Mundi’s member firm lawyers to find ways to increase their pro bono services. One way the Foundation achieved this was by inviting passionate social change makers to speak at Lex Mundi regional conferences. The speakers include:
- Pamela Hartigan – Managing Director of the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship
- Karen Tse – founder of International Bridges to Justice, an organization that trains Chinese and Cambodian defense lawyers
- Jim Fruchterman – CEO of Benetch, an organization that delivers high tech reading tools for the blind and disadvantaged in 60 countries
- Mel Young – founder of the Homeless World Cup and several other organizations that improve the lives of the homeless throughout the world
- Bunker Roy – founder of the Barefoot College that trains the rural poor to become “barefoot” doctors, architects, and engineers in India and other developing countries
- Marco Vinicio Cerezo Blandon – a change maker who has been working on conservation issues in Guatemala for more than 20 years by drafting and helping to enact legislation to protect the environment and build a civil society
- Sylvia Reyes—a psychologist who heads an organization that helps working street children and their families in Guayaquil, Ecuador, break the cycle of poverty and abuse.
To further encourage pro bono work by its member firm lawyers, Lex Mundi founded the Lex Mundi Pro Bono Committee. The committee acts as a liaison between member firms and the Lex Mundi Pro Bono Foundation. Its purpose is to provide guidance, advice, and resources to member firms on their pro bono policies and programs. Any Lex Mundi lawyer may join the Pro Bono Committee.
The day-to-day operations and activities of the Lex Mundi Pro Bono Foundation are supervised and administered by its Managing Director, David Roll. Roll is a Senior Partner and former Chair of Steptoe & Johnson LLP, Lex Mundi’s member firm for Washington DC. He has been with the Pro Bono Foundation since its creation. In late 2006, Roll was joined by Ben Greer, a past Chair of Lex Mundi and retired partner of Alston & Bird LLP – Lex Mundi’s member firm for Georgia. As Vice President, Greer works to match Lex Mundi member firm lawyers with social entrepreneurs and to strengthen the Foundation’s collaborative relationships. The Foundation is overseen by its President, Carl Anduri, and its Board of Directors. Carl Anduri is also the President of Lex Mundi, and the Foundation’s board members serve on the Lex Mundi Executive Committee.
The Foundation also has a newly created Board of Advisors that offers expert guidance and advice on the Foundation’s activities, strategic planning, and financial support. The board is comprised of distinguished leaders drawn from the social entrepreneurial sector and rule of law communities. The current members are Brizio Biondi-Morra, President of Avina and Chairman of INCAE – the leading business school in Latin America; Pamela Hartigan, Managing Director of the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship; Kurt Hoffman, Director of the Shell Foundation; Melissa Johns, an Investment Policy Specialist with the World Bank; and Laura Stein, Senior VP-General Counsel and Corporate Secretary of The Clorox Company.
Going forward, the Lex Mundi Pro Bono Foundation will continue to focus its work on helping social entrepreneurs. “We are the only lawyers’ organization dedicated to helping social entrepreneurs change the world,” said Roll. “We aim to strengthen and expand our reach in 2007 and the coming years.”
The Lex Mundi Pro Bono Foundation is a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation, headquartered in Washington DC. To learn more about the Pro Bono Foundation and its current projects, please visit http://www.lexmundiprobono.org/.
Lex Mundi is the world’s leading association of independent law firms. The association has more than 160 member firms around the world, representing approximately 20,000 lawyers. The organization provides for the exchange of professional information about the global practice and development of law, facilitates and disseminates communications among its members, and improves the members’ abilities to serve the needs of their respective clients. Member law firms are located throughout North America, Europe, Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia and the Pacific, the Middle East, and Africa. http://www.lexmundi.com/.
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