ABA Definition and PLI Definition

There are no limitations. We do ask experts and service providers in our pro bono cases if they would consider donating their services as well.

Pro bono work is assigned generally on the basis of attorney preference/interest. Sidley generates pro bono opportunities internally (through, for example, long-standing relationships with legal service providers, bar organizations and other non-profits) and welcomes pro bono work that Firm lawyers bring in and wish to undertake. Sidley has established six firm-wide initiatives: the Capital Litigation Project, the Political Asylum and Immigrants’ Rights Project, the Veterans Advocacy Project, the Emerging Enterprises Program, Constitutional Rights and Civil Liberties, and Pro Bono Project for the Arts. The Firm encourages attorneys to support these projects, and has devoted significant resources to the matters we have taken pursuant to these initiatives.

Sidley sponsors Pro Bono Fellows in Washington, D.C., Los Angeles and Chicago. Sidley has a pro bono externship program in our New York office.

Sidley handles a wide variety of pro bono matters each year, including transactional and real estate work, criminal trials and appeals (including numerous appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court), housing discrimination litigation, matters involving battered women, child custody cases, landlord/tenant disputes, civil rights advocacy, COVID-19 compassionate release projects, religious liberties, and public benefits cases. As part of our Capital Litigation Project, our first firm-wide initiative launched in 2004, we have represented 24 defendants on death row in Alabama in post-conviction proceedings, totaling more than 164,000 hours dedicated to this work. As part of Sidley’s Political Asylum and Immigrants' Rights Project, the firm’s second firm-wide initiative established two years later, we handle a large number of asylum applications and other matters on behalf of indigent immigrants. Lawyers across Sidley’s U.S. offices have teamed up with prominent nonprofit organizations on multiple federal cases to protect refugees, immigrants, and the legal service providers who represent them. In 2007, Sidley founded its third firm-wide initiative, the Veterans Benefits Project, to help returning service members and veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and veterans of other conflicts receive the benefits to which they are entitled. In 2012, Sidley launched its fourth firm-wide initiative -- and its first global firm-wide initiative -- the Emerging Enterprises Program. As of today, this Program continues to provide free legal support to eligible small and medium-sized for-profit enterprises and market-focused NGOs and non-profits that have a clear social impact in developing countries across Africa, Asia, Central and South America, and the Caribbean.

Sidley frequently is recognized for its unwavering commitment to pro bono service and the work we do.

A full description of our pro bono work can be found in our annual pro bono reports at: https://www.sidley.com/en/probonolanding

An important component of Sidley’s pro bono work is its fellowship program, which allows associates to work at nonprofit organizations in the community before they begin working at the firm. While the programs in Sidley’s various offices differ in some respects, the programs all share certain characteristics: Sidley provides a fellowship stipend or pays the salary of the fellows or externs to allow them to work for a nonprofit organization for up to 10 weeks.