Beyond a lawyer’s professional responsibility to provide services to those who cannot afford to secure legal representation, pro bono work is emerging as a powerful vehicle for strategic, lasting, and transformative change in communities.
At the ABA Business Law Section 2026 Spring Meeting held in Atlanta, Georgia, the ABA Business Law Section Pro Bono Committee hosted the roundtable “Investing in High-Impact Pro Bono Projects,” discussing how legal professionals, including transactional attorneys, empower businesses through pro bono legal assistance and leverage innovative models to scale impact. The roundtable discussion, moderated by Sandrine Siewe, ABA Business Law Fellow, featured insights from Radha Sathe Manthe, Pro Bono Deputy at King & Spalding LLP; Kerry-ann Archer, Senior Counsel at Wells Fargo Legal Department; Kate M. Gaffney, Pro Bono Director at Atlanta Legal Aid Society; and Alina Lee, Founding Partner, Aspire Law.
High-Impact Pro Bono Opportunities for Transactional Attorneys in Atlanta
When explaining how their organizations identify high-impact pro bono opportunities, Manthe and Lee emphasized that they ground their pro bono assistance in what communities need through strong collaboration with their local partners, such as Georgia Justice Project, Atlanta Legal Aid Society, and Pro Bono Partnership of Atlanta.
At Aspire Law, as Lee explained, representing or assisting pro bono clients with legal matters gives lawyers a sense of connectedness and purpose, assuring them that their efforts matter and they make a difference in their community. A crucial step Aspire Law takes in identifying impactful pro bono opportunities is consulting legal aid nonprofits about the practice areas with the most pressing needs, drawing on their expertise on the ground. Some of the firm’s pro bono services include creating and sharing contract templates with Pro Bono Partnership of Atlanta and providing a training program for nonprofit board members that outlines best practices in board governance and fiduciary duties. To date, this training has been rolled out to over a hundred nonprofits across Georgia.
At King & Spalding, pro bono work is informed by community needs through several partnerships, including with Georgia Justice Project and Atlanta Legal Aid Society. Many of their transactional lawyers enjoy assisting small businesses and nonprofit organizations with their legal needs. Entrepreneurs often lack access to legal advice early on, and assistance with issues such as entity formation, contracts, and governance can be critical to helping those organizations launch and grow. The firm’s pro bono work also includes immigration matters, which, Manthe emphasized, can be transactional in nature and do not always involve court appearances. Attorneys may assist with drafting asylum applications, preparing affidavits, and gathering relevant evidence. Although immigration work may sound intimidating to some transactional attorneys, their attention to detail is a useful skill set for immigration applications.
Partnerships Between Law Firms, Corporations, and Legal Service Providers
Community-informed pro bono services require trust and sustained relationships between law firms, corporations, and legal service providers. To ensure a successful and sustainable collaboration, organizations should be intentional about the values that guide their relationship. At Atlanta Legal Aid Society, client needs and mission alignment are central to partner selection. Gaffney noted that Atlanta Legal Aid Society is grateful for partners who are flexible in meeting evolving client needs rather than defining those needs themselves. Actions that make strong partnerships include firms offering to staff all cases on a clinic date, piloting a new project, offering candid feedback and allowing for ongoing improvements, reassigning cases internally when an associate leaves, and developing project mentors within firms.
In legal departments, partnerships with local partners may have a different structure. There is a growing trend toward the development of joint pro bono ventures between in-house and outside counsel that allow each party to the relationship to leverage their particular strengths and skills. For instance, Wells Fargo collaborates with law firms and legal service providers through a variety of channels, including the Charlotte Triage Pro Bono Partnership. This initiative was launched in 2018, bringing together law firms and corporations to focus on areas of greatest need identified by local legal aid organizations. Through this partnership, Wells Fargo in-house counsel assist indigent clients with a variety of matters ranging from advising consumers and small businesses to helping tenants across North Carolina with housing issues.[1] For instance, Archer has assisted small and emerging businesses on various matters. She has also had the opportunity to work on housing-related matters, including eviction defense work to prevent homelessness. These matters often involve urgent circumstances for families, and even limited legal intervention can make a significant difference in stabilizing housing and preventing displacement.
Such strategic partnerships help coordinate participation of legal professionals and ultimately, build civic infrastructure needed for improved access to justice. Indicators of success beyond case outcomes include repeat collaborations, program renewals, and increased participation from legal professionals.
Innovative Models of Pro Bono Support and the Future of Access to Justice
As the demand for pro bono services continues to outpace available resources, the panelists highlighted some innovative approaches and technologies their organizations and clients are adopting or considering to address longstanding challenges in the pro bono sector, including resource constraints and access barriers. With a view to optimizing available resources, Atlanta Legal Aid Society may offer very defined litigation opportunities with detailed training and mentorship for transactional lawyers interested in experience outside their area, such as temporary protective order matters, name change cases, or eviction clinics. To help scale up pro bono work, other organizations are adopting tools powered by artificial intelligence when providing legal services, while taking into account ethical risks related to emerging technologies. For instance, one of Lee’s clients, the legal department of an Atlanta-based company, is actively training an AI agent to answer the most common legal questions for pro bono matters, making it easier and faster for their attorneys to provide pro bono legal support. The company also plans to make the AI agent available to pro bono organizations after adequate testing for greater impact.
The panelists’ insights reflect how firms can thoughtfully invest their business law resources and transactional talent in high-impact pro bono work. The outcomes of such an investment are practical and sustainable: a nonprofit that can now legally raise funds, a small-business owner who fully understands their contractual obligations, and a community organization with governance structures and systems that outlast its founder’s departure.
ABA National Public Service Award
Each year, the ABA Business Law Section presents the National Public Service Award as part of its efforts to recognize significant pro bono legal contributions in a business context. Following the roundtable, the ABA Business Law Section Pro Bono Committee presented the 2026 National Public Service Award to Fenwick & West LLP and Justin B. Finn, for their outstanding commitment to providing legal services to individuals and entities that could not otherwise afford them. Amid rapid policy changes, natural disasters, and economic uncertainty, Fenwick provided 24,256 hours of pro bono legal services, raised almost $500,000 for organizations addressing food insecurity and disaster relief, and hosted more than 120 pro bono clinics and high-impact programs serving those most affected. Finn is widely recognized for his leadership in advancing bipartisan civic engagement and public service through innovative legal and community initiatives that bridge societal divides while promoting collaboration, dialogue, and democratic participation.
This article reflects insights from the 2026 ABA Pro Bono Happy Hour Roundtable held in Atlanta, Georgia, and organized by Jayme Cassidy and Brenda Barrett, Co-Chairs of the ABA Business Law Section Pro Bono Committee.
Charlotte Triage was launched by pro bono leaders from Bank of America, McGuireWoods, Duke Energy, Moore & Van Allen, Wells Fargo and Husqvarna. ↑
