Analysis

The Index tracks the relationship between the number of fee earners, including partners, and the amount of pro bono work done by the firm. Our aim is to understand if, and to what extent, the size of a firm impacts the strength and success of its pro bono practice.

The 209 firms that submitted data for the 2024 Index were classified according to size and comprised:

• Small Firms: Firms that have a total headcount of less than 50 fee earners
• Medium-sized Firms: Firms that have 50 – 199 fee earners
• Large Firms: Firms that have 200+ fee earners

Globally, lawyers dedicated an average of 35.6 hours per year to pro bono and 43 percent of lawyers dedicated ten or more hours of their time to pro bono work in 2024, an increase from 38 percent in 2022 and a promising signal of a strong legal community that is engaged in pro bono at all levels.

However, over time we have seen that lawyers at Large Firms tend to do more pro bono than those at Medium-sized and Small Firms. The trend continued this year, with fee earners in Large Firms averaging 36.3 hours, followed by Medium-sized Firms at 16.8 hours, and Small Firms at 15.9 hours. Compared to 2022, this is up slightly from 32.5 hours for Large Firms and down slightly from 19.7 hours for Medium-sized firms and 20.3 hours for Small Firms. On pro bono participation, Large Firms also lead the way, with 43 percent of fee earners at Large Firms doing 10 or more hours of pro bono, followed by 37 percent at Medium-sized Firms and 37 percent at Small Firms.

Partner engagement can be a critical driver for pro bono adoption within firms. Globally, partners averaged 20.3 hours of pro bono, which is a dip from 26.7 hours in 2022. Just over half—53 percent—of partners at responding firms did any pro bono and 34 percent did 10 or more hours of pro bono (on par with 52 and 33 percent, respectively, in 2022).

In Large Firms, partners averaged 21 hours of pro bono. In Medium-sized and Small Firms, this figure was halved, with an average of 8 and 9.1 hours per partner, respectively. In Large Firms, 34 percent of partners did 10+ hours of pro bono, on par with 35 percent in 2022. In Medium-sized Firms, the trend is up slightly: Our data shows 29 percent of partners doing 10+ hours of pro bono (from 22 percent in 2022) and 44 percent doing any pro bono (from 41 percent in 2022). In Small Firms, we see 21 percent of partners doing 10+ hours of pro bono and 31 percent doing any pro bono. This is a drop from 2022, when we saw an unusually high 56 percent of partners in Small Firms reporting into the Index that they did any pro bono and 48 percent performing more than 10 hours.

We see pro bono as a crucial tool in tackling humanity’s most pressing challenges and ensuring access to the law where it is needed most. Effective pro bono efforts blend lawyers’ willingness, skills and capabilities to undertake pro bono work with a dedication to developing and sustaining a robust pro bono culture.

Each year, we ask firms why they do pro bono. As in prior years, desire to support the community is the main reason, according to 93 percent of responding firms (down from 96 percent in 2022).

Interestingly, the figures in every other category have risen since 2022 (and, indeed there has been an overall rise since the start of the Index). Pro bono continues to be seen as a capacity-building tool for lawyers, with training and skill development as the second most common reason why firms engage in pro bono (73 percent, up from with 67 percent in 2022). Staff retention is the third most common reason, with 47 percent of responding firms selecting this (up from 38 percent in 2022), followed by alignment with client interests (45 percent, compared with 38 percent in 2022) and marketing (34 percent, compared with 31 percent in 2022).

As noted above, the rise in other reasons for doing pro bono likely reflects growing attention to the “business case” for pro bono and the multifaceted benefits of doing pro bono at the individual, organisational and societal levels. It may also reflect growing demand from clients to see meaningful commitment to pro bono from their panel firms and to offer opportunities for their in-house teams to partner on pro bono projects.

What Causes are Firms Focused on?

Each year we ask firms to describe their current focus areas for pro bono. They can select up to five focus areas that best capture their pro bono activities during the reporting period. In 2024, for the first time, we asked a question about expected new areas of strategic focus or growth over the next 12 to 24 months (discussed below).

Access to justice remains the top priority for firms, with 65 percent selecting it as a current area of focus. It was the top priority across all sizes of firms.

Globally, the next two top priorities were immigration, refugees and asylum (44 percent), and human rights (37 percent). This is not surprising given the growing reality and risk of displacement, driven by conflict, climate change and other factors, as well as the broad need for legal support to defend human rights in the face of growing repression and backsliding on rights in many parts of the world.

Other areas of pro bono focus include women’s rights (30 percent); environment, climate, and biodiversity (30 percent); and LGBTQ+ rights (27 percent). This year we offered an option to select ethnic/minority rights and racial justice as a separate focus area: almost a quarter of firms (24 percent) said they are prioritising this area.

Firms of different sizes expressed slightly different priorities. In particular, Large Firms and Medium-sized Firms placed most emphasis on access to justice (74 and 71 percent, respectively) and immigration, refugees and asylum (64 percent and 46 percent, respectively). Next, Large Firms prioritised LGBTQ+ rights (41 percent), while Medium-sized Firms selected the broad category of human rights (38 percent). Small Firms prioritised access to justice (46 percent), human rights (32 percent) and environment, climate and biodiversity (30 percent).

Looking Ahead

For the first time, we asked firms about new areas of strategic focus or growth in pro bono for the next 12 to 24 months. Firms told us access to justice would be a new or growing area of focus in that period (40 percent), followed by environment, climate and biodiversity (35 percent), and women’s rights (25 percent).

The data indicates that Small and Large Firms plan to prioritise access to justice, at 30 percent and 44 percent, respectively, of each cohort selecting this as their most common area of growth. In contrast, Medium-sized Firms most commonly intended to focus on the environment, climate and biodiversity, at 54 percent.

Types of Pro Bono Work, Clients and Eligibility

Pro bono clients and eligibility criteria

Eligibility criteria can be helpful to set a consistent standard for the types of clients or matters a firm will support. Of the responding firms, 72 percent told us they have a formal process for determining eligibility, a slight increase from 67 percent in 2022. Eligibility processes are more common among Large and Medium-sized Firms (95 and 83 percent, respectively) than among Small Firms (44 percent).

Registered charities and non-profits remain the most common recipients of pro bono services (86 percent) across firms of all sizes, reflecting an ongoing pro bono commitment to supporting the non-profit sector. Social enterprises and individuals in need also receive broad support (69 percent and 67 percent, respectively). Under half of firms provide pro bono advice to government, intergovernmental and multilateral organisations (42 percent).

There has been growing interest in working with non-traditional clients, such as small businesses and start-ups (especially where founders come from or focus on serving traditionally marginalised or disadvantaged communities), as well as journalists and public interest news providers, who are navigating increasingly challenging environments and threats to sustainability. The 2024 Index is the first time we have asked firms about these groups: A majority of responding firms (54 percent) said they work with small businesses and/or start-ups, and a sizable number (20 percent) work with journalists and/or small news organisations.

After charities and non-profits, Large Firms are more likely to work with all other categories of client than are Medium-sized and Small Firms. Large Firms support individuals in need and social enterprises at rates that are meaningfully higher than the global average across all sizes of firm. Large and Medium-sized Firms are also twice as likely as Small Firms to support small businesses as pro bono clients.

How pro bono is delivered

Firms deliver pro bono legal support in different ways. They most commonly offer pro bono legal research (87 percent), corporate/commercial advice to eligible organisations (84 percent), legal training and/or public legal education (65 percent), litigation or representation in legal proceedings (64 percent) and public interest litigation (50 percent).

Nearly all Large and Medium-sized Firms offer corporate/commercial advice to eligible organisations (97 percent and 92 percent, respectively) and legal research (96 and 92 percent, respectively), as well as litigation or representation in legal proceedings (84 and 76 percent, respectively). Small Firms, by contrast, focus on legal research (72 percent), corporate/commercial advice to eligible organisations (69 percent) and legal training and/or public legal education (47 percent).

Large Firms are far more likely than Medium-sized or Small Firms to support strategic litigation on a pro bono basis (71 percent, compared to 17 and 12 percent, respectively), which is not surprising given the time and resources typically involved in mounting such actions.

Sourcing Pro Bono Matters and Clients

Globally, most firms (74 percent) source pro bono clients or matters via direct approaches and individual clients, as well as from legal clinics (58 percent), clearinghouses (54 percent) and local law societies or bar associations (52 percent). Since 2022, we have seen a slight rise across all sources of pro bono but most significantly from legal clinics, from 44 to 58 percent.

Firms of all sizes source pro bono from individual clients at similarly high rates (77, 79 and 74 percent, from Large to Small), but Large Firms are more likely to also engage in pro bono through legal clinics (89 percent) and clearinghouses (81 percent), whereas Medium-sized and Small Firms are more likely to seek pro bono through local law societies and bar associations (58 percent and 28 percent, respectively). Medium-sized Firms also use clearinghouses (58 percent), but Small Firms are less likely to engage with clearinghouses as a source of pro bono (18 percent), which may be the result of budgetary limitations (as some, though not all, clearinghouses operate on a paid membership model).

Many firms establish systems and structures to enhance their pro bono work. Pro bono “infrastructure”, as we call it, can include:

• Pro bono policies: internal policies designed to guide or set minimum standards for pro bono practices
• Pro bono committee: a body whose role is to evaluate potential pro bono matters and/or take the lead on pro bono policy and strategy issues
• Pro bono coordinator(s): a point person or team within a firm responsible to coordinate the firm’s day-to-day pro bono work.

The percentage of firms with some form of pro bono infrastructure remains steady at 88 percent across our global sample, compared to 89 percent in 2022 and 87 percent in 2020.

However, the presence of infrastructure varies across different firm sizes, as also highlighted in the 2022 Index. This year, 99 percent of Large Firms and 88 percent of Medium-sized Firms reported having at least one component of pro bono infrastructure, with 72 and 71 percent, respectively, having all three elements (i.e. staff, policies and committees). There has been a meaningful rise in the percentage of Medium-sized Firms with all three elements (69 percent), compared to 2022 (38 percent).

Among Small Firms, it is common to have at least one element of pro bono infrastructure (74 percent) but remains less common to have all three elements (16 percent).

England & Wales (95 percent) and the United States (93 percent) have the highest number of firms with pro bono infrastructure. They also have the highest percentage of firms with all three elements of pro bono infrastructure. The United States continues to have the highest percentage of firms with all elements of pro bono infrastructure at 67 percent, followed by England & Wales at 66 percent (in 2022, these figures were 69 and 62 percent respectively). The high levels of pro bono infrastructure in these jurisdictions are consistent with their well-established and developed pro bono sectors.

Contrary to expectations, the 2024 data shows that fee earners at firms with at least one element of pro bono infrastructure performed an average of 27.2 hours of pro bono work, compared to 29.2 hours at firms without. In 2022, fee earners at firms with pro bono infrastructure averaged 32.1 hours, versus 13.5 hours at firms without it. We see that 43 percent of fee earners at firms with at least one element of pro bono infrastructure performed 10 or more hours of pro bono, compared to 55 percent of fee earners at firms without any element of pro bono infrastructure.

In firms where all elements of pro bono infrastructure are present, 45 percent of fee earners performed 10 or more hours of pro bono work, averaging 32 hours of pro bono annually. This aligns with the 2022 data, which showed 41 percent of fee earners at firms with complete pro bono infrastructure did 10 or more hours of pro bono work, averaging 32 hours of pro bono.

Pro Bono Policies

We first asked about pro bono policies in the 2015 Index, in which 64 percent of firms indicated they had some form of formal written policy. The result has increased, though not significantly, with 71 percent of responding firms indicating they have a policy in the 2024 Index. Of the firms that report having a formal pro bono policy, 97 percent are Large Firms, 79 percent are Medium-sized Firms and 37 percent are Small Firms.

The pro bono policies of responding firms cover various areas, including the declaration of the firm’s attitude and intent towards pro bono (64 percent), eligibility criteria for pro bono clients (56 percent), the constitution and role of the pro bono committee (42 percent) and the role of the pro bono coordinator (36 percent).

Lawyers at firms with a pro bono policy performed 43 percent more average pro bono hours relative to firms without a policy: 30.3 hours, compared to 19.6 hours. This trend is consistent with the positive relationship between policies and hours we have seen across the years, though the gap is slightly less pronounced than in 2022, when lawyers at firms with a policy averaged 32.3 hours, compared to 12 hours at firms without a policy.

In terms of overall engagement, 43 percent of lawyers at firms with a formal pro bono policy performed 10 or more hours of pro bono work, compared to 50 percent of lawyers at firms without such a policy.

In 2024, Medium-sized Firms with a pro bono policy reported an average of 19 hours of pro bono work per lawyer and 42 percent of lawyers at these firms performed 10 or more hours of pro bono work. This contrasts with Medium-sized Firms without a pro bono policy, where the average was just 4.9 hours and only 19 percent of lawyers performed 10 or more hours. Policies may be less impactful within Small Firms: Lawyers at Small Firms without a policy averaged 22 hours of pro bono, compared with 20.5 hours at firms that had a policy, though we do see 50 percent of lawyers at Small Firms with a pro bono policy recorded 10 or more hours of pro bono work, compared to 55 percent at firms without a pro bono policy.

Pro Bono Committees

Unlike pro bono coordinators who are involved in the day-to-day management and coordination of pro bono matters (discussed below), pro bono committees tend to play a more oversight and advisory role in shaping a firm’s pro bono practice.

This year, 57 percent of firms reported having a pro bono committee (comparable to 59 percent in the 2022 Index). Among different firm sizes, 83 percent of Medium-sized Firms indicated they had a pro bono committee, followed by 76 percent of Large Firms and 28 percent of Small Firms. Of the firms that did not have a pro bono committee, 70 percent did report having a designated pro bono coordinator, which indicates (as we see in practice) that some firms prefer to create dedicated pro bono roles/teams rather than establish committees.

The presence of a pro bono committee correlates with a slightly higher average number of pro bono hours, as in 2022, with firms with a committee reporting an average 30.7 hours of pro bono work per lawyer, compared to 23.7 hours at firms without a pro bono committee. In this year’s data, however, we do not see higher engagement in firms that have a committee, with 44 percent of lawyers at firms with a pro bono committee performing 10 or more hours of pro bono work, compared to 46 percent at firms without a committee.

Pro Bono Coordinators

The final element we consider as part of “pro bono infrastructure” is whether firms have designated a pro bono coordinator to coordinate their firm’s day-to-day of pro bono. This can sometimes be a partner or associate with mostly fee-earning responsibilities who steps up to help coordinate the firm’s pro bono portfolio or it can be one or more dedicated pro bono professionals/employees hired to manage the pro bono of the firm. We delve more into dedicated pro bono professionals and pro bono team staffing in the next section.

A significant percentage of firms (83 percent) designate a person with primary responsibility to coordinate the firm’s day-to-day pro bono legal work, up from 77 percent in 2020 For many firms (49 percent), this person is also the most senior person in charge of pro bono (see below), whereas for 29 percent of firms responsibility for pro bono oversight and leadership is separate from day-to-day management of the pro bono programme. Firms with a designated person coordinating the firm’s day-to-day pro bono work see fee earners average almost three times more pro bono than those without one—36.2 hours of pro bono compared to 13.9 hours.

This suggests that having a designated pro bono coordinator may contribute to more pro bono work being done. By firm size, the findings offer more nuance. In Large Firms, designating a pro bono coordinator correlated with nearly triple the average hours (36.7 hours versus 12.4 hours) compared to those without. Similarly, in Medium-sized Firms, lawyers at firms with a pro bono coordinator averaged significantly more average hours than those without (19.1 hours versus 11.8 hours). Conversely, for Small Firms the relationship is inverse with the influence of very small but highly engaged firms reporting this year: we find fee earners at Small Firms with no coordinator averaged 25.8 hours of pro bono compared to 12.6 hours at firms with a coordinator.

This year, we asked more pro bono staffing questions aimed at better understanding the impact of hiring employees into roles that are partly or fully dedicated to pro bono, as well as the impact that seniority of roles can have in influencing how effective a firm’s pro bono practice is. We also asked firms about how their pro bono and corporate social responsibility (or similar) teams interact and the amounts allocated to pro bono budgets.

Pro bono employees

Globally, 72 percent of firms reported having at least one person employed full time or part time in their pro bono practice, up from 61 percent in 2022. Firms reported an average of 2.2 full-time employees and 1.5 part-time employees engaged in their pro bono practice. As we would expect, however, there is considerable variation among firms ranging from many who reported nil or one pro bono employee to larger teams of up to 22 mostly full-time pro bono staff.

The data shows a positive relationship between having a pro bono employee and the level of pro bono performed, with firms that hired at least one employee averaging 31.1 hours per fee earner, compared with 24.3 hours at firms with no pro bono employee. However, within these global averages there is considerable difference by firm size. For Large Firms, the relationship is much more pronounced: Fee earners at Large Firms with a pro bono employee average 37.5 hours compared with 7 hours at firms that do not, a factor of more than five times. For Medium-sized Firms, the difference is meaningful, but smaller: 20.3 hours at firms with a pro bono employee compared to 16.2 hours at firms without such a person. For Small Firms, the relationship is inverted, which may be explained because small firms that reported into the Index in 2024 tend to be very small and highly engaged in pro bono.

The presence of a pro bono employee also correlates to engagement. Globally, 45 percent of lawyers from firms with at least one pro bono employee record ten or more hours of pro bono compared to 53 percent in firms without one. However, for Large and Medium-sized Firms this relationship looks very different, with 43 percent of lawyers at Large Firms with a pro bono coordinator doing 10+ hours of pro bono compared to 21 percent at firms without a coordinator, and 48 percent of lawyers at Medium-sized Firms doing 10+ hours of pro bono compared with 25 percent at firms without one. On the other hand, for Small Firms, the influence of having a dedicated pro bono employee is less clear: Our data showed that 76 percent of lawyers were engaged in 10+ hours at firms without a coordinator compared to 47 percent at firms with one.

These findings can be understood in terms of the growing value of pro bono infrastructure and staff with size—larger firms with more staff benefit more from hiring dedicated staff to drive pro bono coordination.

Common pro bono roles

For the survey, we asked firms to tell us how many pro bono roles they had across a selection of standard titles—pro bono administrator, manager, associate, partner, director or head, and counsel. We also asked that they categorise these roles as either:

• “exclusive pro bono role” referring to a pro bono role with remit to work exclusively or principally on pro bono matters, or administration of such matters, or the firm’s pro bono programme; or
• “mixed role” meaning pro bono employees who balance meaningful pro bono administration/management responsibilities with other fee-earning or non-fee-earning responsibilities.

The data indicates that pro bono associates are the most common pro bono role within firms (45 percent of the total roles reported). Pro bono partners are the second most prevalent type of role (19 percent), followed by administrators, assistants or coordinators (13 percent), counsel (7 percent), managers (5 percent), directors or heads (3 percent) and other (8 percent).

However, only 15 percent of reported pro bono partners and 20 percent of associates are in an exclusive pro bono role, compared with 66 percent of pro bono counsel, 62 percent of directors and heads, 62 percent of managers, and 57 percent of administrators. This indicates pro bono associates and partners are more likely to balance their pro bono responsibilities with other non-fee earning or, more likely, fee-earning responsibilities, whereas other types of roles (although less common) are more likely to be focused principally on pro bono.

For ease of analysis, we asked firms to report under common umbrella titles for pro bono staff (i.e. for senior associates, etc. to be reported as “associates” and so on), but we also provided an “Other” option and invited firms to tell us what other roles they have. These free text responses included some mixed roles, e.g. Pro Bono Counsel and Director, as well as other titles not offered as distinct options, such as Pro Bono Consultant and Chief Pro Bono Officer.

Partner buy-in and senior leadership in pro bono

Having partner and other senior-level buy-in can have a meaningful impact on the uptake of pro bono in firms, helping drive commitment to and effectiveness of pro bono initiatives. Around half of firms (52 percent) reported that a partner was the most senior individual in charge of pro bono within the firm. Meanwhile, 14 percent indicated a director was the most senior person, 9 percent indicated a counsel, 5 percent indicated a manager, 3 percent indicated an associate, and 1 percent indicated a coordinator/administrator.

To assess the impact of seniority, we compared firms that reported having a partner, director, counsel, or head in charge of pro bono with a second group of firms that reported having a manager, associate, or administrator/coordinator as the most senior person in charge of pro bono. Our hypothesis was that having a more senior person within a firm overseeing pro bono can contribute to buy-in within the firm and a higher overall level of pro bono hours and engagement. In the data, we confirmed that firms with more senior roles in charge of pro bono report nearly three times the average pro bono hours of those with less senior roles (28 hours versus 10.8 hours, respectively). Likewise, firms with more senior roles averaged 45 percent of lawyers doing 10 or more hours of pro bono compared to 29 percent at firms with less senior leadership.

Seniority is not a meaningful factor within Small Firms (average hours and engagement are effectively the same whether responsibility for pro bono sits with someone more senior or not) but in Large and Medium-sized Firms the difference is significant and, among those, firms with more senior roles in charge of pro bono have significantly higher average hours than those without—for Large Firms, 34.4 average hours versus 6.7 hours and for Medium-sized Firms, 18.4 hours versus 6.4 hours. On engagement, the difference is similar, with Large Firms with more senior oversight reporting that 42 percent of lawyers do 10 or more hours of pro bono versus 15 percent at firms without that senior leadership and Medium-sized Firms reporting 40 percent versus 24 percent.

Pro Bono and CSR

This year, we aimed to explore the relationship between pro bono and other corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives, sustainability efforts, social impact programmes, environmental, social and governance (ESG) initiatives, and other similar programmes or activities (collectively, “CSR programmes”).

Among responding firms, 74 percent have an internal-facing CSR programme. Of those, 45 percent reported that their pro bono and CSR programmes were managed separately and 26 percent said they were managed jointly, while 29 percent did not specify. Half of firms (50 percent) indicated that their pro bono and CSR programmes had a separate budget, whereas 19 percent had a shared budget and 31 percent did not specify.

The data seems to signal that, at least for now, firms with a dedicated pro bono programme do more pro bono work than those whose pro bono is managed jointly with another CSR programme. Specifically, firms with a dedicated pro bono programme performed 42 percent more pro bono hours: an average of 33.9 hours, compared with 22.2 hours at firms with combined teams. We also see slightly higher levels of engagement in the data (46 percent of fee earners doing 10+ hours, compared with 39 percent where the programmes are managed jointly).

Pro Bono Budgets

We know financial investment can have a meaningful impact on the effectiveness of a pro bono programme. This year, we asked firms how much budget their firm allocated to conducting its pro bono practice. We asked firms to include amounts given as donations to pro bono charities and non-profits (e.g. to clearinghouses or bar association pro bono programmes) but not donations to pro bono charity clients, for example.

More than a quarter of firms (26 percent) have a pro bono budget above $100,000 USD. The rest of firms take a varied approach: 5 percent of firms have budgets of $50,000–$100,000, 1 percent are between $30,000–$50,000, and 9 percent are between $10,000–$30,000. Other firms operate with more modest budgets of $1,000–$5,000 (18 percent) and $5,000–$10,000 (10 percent), while 32 percent chose not to specify their budget.

By firm size, unsurprisingly, Large Firms generally allocate more financial resources to support their pro bono practices. The most common pro bono budget among Large Firms was above $100,000 (46 percent), followed by $50,000–$100,000 (6 percent). Medium-sized and Small Firms most commonly report budgets of $1,000–$5,000 (19 percent and 38 percent, respectively) or $5,000–$10,000 (15 percent and 13 percent, respectively).

Generally, pro bono budgets are growing, with 51 percent of firms with a dedicated budget responding that their budget is larger than it was two years ago. Among the rest, 46 percent had the same budget, and only 2 percent had seen cuts to their budgets in the last two years.

To make sense of the data and understand whether higher budgets correlate to more pro bono, we grouped firms with pro bono budgets of $50,000 and above and those with budgets under $50,000 to compare the two groups. We find that firms with budgets of $50,000 and over had more than three times higher average pro bono hours than their counterparts with lower budgets: an average of 31.9 hours, compared with 9.8 hours for firms allocating pro bono budgets of less than $50,000. Firms with higher budgets have an average 38 percent of lawyers doing 10+ hours of pro bono compared with 21 percent in firms with lower budgets.

In this way, budget allocations seem to lead to higher pro bono engagement, making the financial investment worth the return.

Many firms use incentives to encourage their lawyers to participate in pro bono. These incentives can take the form of compensation, incorporating pro bono into the appraisal or review process to ensure lawyers are rewarded for their efforts, or setting mandatory or aspirational targets for pro bono engagement.

Pro Bono In Performance Reviews

By considering pro bono work in performance reviews, law firms can help signal that lawyers should approach these matters with the same level of commitment and professionalism as fee-earning matters. Globally, 80 percent of firms now factor pro bono into their review processes (up from 78 percent in 2022). Among those, 90 percent of Large Firms and 88 percent of Medium-sized Firms factor pro bono work into their review processes (a rise from 80 and 87 percent, respectively, in 2022). Among Small Firms, 70 percent consider pro bono in reviews (from 65 percent in 2022).

The data shows a positive relationship between factoring pro bono work into reviews and average pro bono hours, with lawyers (non-partners) at firms that factor pro bono performing an average of 29.7 hours of pro bono work, significantly more than the 17.4 hours at firms that do not do so.

Interestingly, we see little difference in terms of depth of pro bono engagement among non-partners—44 versus 47 percent of non-partner lawyers did 10+ hours of pro bono, depending on whether the firm does or does not factor pro bono in reviews. Though, we did see a difference among partners, with 47 percent of partners at firms that factor pro bono in reviews performing 10+ hours of pro bono, compared to 40 percent at firms that do not.

Factoring Pro Bono in Compensation

Taking pro bono into account when assessing compensation for lawyers can also send a clear signal and influence engagement levels. We see that 57 percent of firms now consider pro bono work in their compensation decisions for non-partners, up from 52 percent in 2022. Among those, 82 percent of Large Firms and 50 percent of Medium-sized Firms and 28 percent of Small Firms factor pro bono work into their compensation processes (a rise from 78 percent and 44 percent in Large and Medium-sized Firms, and a drop from 38 percent for Small Firms from 2022).

Lawyers (non-partners) at firms that consider pro bono work when determining compensation averaged 33.4 hours of pro bono work, compared to 19 hours at firms that do not. Meanwhile, partners at firms that consider pro bono work when determining compensation averaged 34.5hours compared to 24.8 hours at firms that do not.

In this year’s data, we do not see a significant difference in percentage engagement depending on whether compensation factors in pro bono. Lawyers are engaged in 10+ hours of pro bono at firms that factor pro bono into compensation at similar rates (44 percent) to those at firms that do not (46 percent).

Counting Pro Bono Hours towards fee-earning Targets

Our data shows that 68 percent of responding firms factor pro bono into their fee-earning or utilisation target.

However, firms take different approaches. Over a third (34 percent) said they treat all pro bono hours and work in the same way as fee-earning hours and work (down from 46 percent in 2022). Another 22 percent credit pro bono hours and work up to a maximum threshold (as in 2022), while only 3 percent indicated a minimum fee-earning hours threshold must be reached before pro bono hours are considered (compared to 5 percent in 2022). Only 2 percent of firms indicated pro bono is not factored at all into their hour or utilisation targets. Overall, firms that count pro bono hours towards fee-earning targets perform twice the number of hours compared to firms that do not (31.5 hours versus 16 hours).

Pro Bono Targets

Over the years, we have seen a trend towards setting specific targets for pro bono hours. Such targets, whether mandated by regulatory bodies or established as requirements by firms themselves, can meaningfully impact the amount of pro bono being done within a firm. Some firms have aligned with voluntary industry initiatives such as the UK Collaborative Plan for Pro Bono, which carries with it a 25-hour annual pro bono target expectation. Similarly, the Pro Bono Declaration of the Americas commits signatory law firms to achieve 20 annual pro bono hours per attorney. The Australian Pro Bono Centre has a voluntary aspirational target of 35 hours for lawyers in private practice and 20 hours for in-house counsel.

These targets, whether mandatory or aspirational, play a crucial role in shaping pro bono engagement by establishing clear expectations and benchmarks. They reflect a recognition of the importance of pro bono work from the top and provide structured goals that help firms and individual attorneys contribute effectively to pro bono service.

Pro bono targets

We first asked about pro bono targets in 2014 and at the time 21.7 percent of firms had pro bono targets. In 2024, 42 percent of responding firms overall had a pro bono target.

Most firms that set a target opt for an aspirational target, where hitting a threshold for pro bono is encouraged but not strictly enforced (76 percent), while a quarter of firms set mandatory targets (24 percent). Targets are more prevalent among Large and Medium-sized Firms. We saw 52 percent of Large Firms reporting having pro bono targets, followed by 50 percent of Medium-sized Firms and 26 percent of Small Firms.

Firms that adopt targets, whether mandatory or aspirational, report 37 percent higher hours than firms without targets: an average of 33.8 hours of pro bono per lawyer at those with targets, compared to 23.2 hours in firms without targets. Firms that adopt mandatory targets do more hours than those with aspirational targets: 40.4 hours on average, compared to 32.1 hours.

Similarly, higher pro bono engagement is associated with pro bono targets, with 50 percent of lawyers completing 10+ hours of pro bono work at firms that have targets, compared to 39 percent at firms without targets. Firms with mandatory targets average higher participation, with 71 percent of lawyers doing 10+ hours compared to 45 percent at firms with aspirational targets.

What target to set

This is the first year we are publishing specific data on pro bono targets. Our survey findings indicate that the average global annual pro bono target is 30 hours, and the median pro bono target adopted by firms globally is 25 hours, with submissions covering a wide range from 1 to 240 hours. The most common targets set by firms were: 20, 25, 30, 40 and 50.

By firm size, Large Firms had a median target of 25 hours, while Small Firms and Medium-sized Firms were not far off, reporting a median of 20 hours. Australia had the highest median target of 36.5 hours, while most other regions, including the US, Europe and UK (England & Wales), all had a median of 25 hours, and the Americas (excluding the US) had a median of 20 hours.

Mandatory or aspirational

As we note above, all targets have a positive relationship with the number of hours and depth of engagement with pro bono within firms.

There are continuing ethical and practical debates about whether pro bono should be voluntary or required. However, we do see in the data that mandatory targets are associated with higher average hours—40.4 hours—compared with 32.1 hours by lawyers at firms with aspirational targets.

At firms with a mandatory target, 71 percent of lawyers performed 10+ hours of pro bono, compared to 45 percent where the target was aspirational. This is akin to our 2022 data, which showed that 85 percent of lawyers working at firms with a mandatory target performed 10+ hours of pro bono, which was twice the percentage of their colleagues whose firms’ targets were aspirational, at 44 percent in that same year.

For the first time in 2022, we asked about firms’ diversity commitments in relation to pro bono. We did not define the term “formal diversity commitment” to be inclusive of different approaches to diversity, which vary considerably around the globe, and we invited free text responses to give a broad picture of how firms were thinking about diversity in the pro bono context. This year, we introduced structured questions to allow more precision and comparability.

There is an increase in the number of firms with diversity commitments in relation to pro bono—33 percent of firms, up from 27 percent in 2022. Firms in Australia report the highest rate of diversity commitments at 55 percent, followed by firms in the Americas region (excluding the US) at 46 percent and 36 percent of firms in the US.

This year, we included a question to understand what form diversity commitments take. The data suggests that firms are taking different approaches, but most commonly commitments included:

• Offering pro bono support to organisations that work on matters that serve diverse communities (29 percent)
• Commitment to staffing pro bono matters with a diverse team of lawyers (22 percent)
• Offering financial contributions to organisations that serve diverse communities (13 percent)

We offered a free text box and received insightful responses. Several firms reported forming pro bono task forces with diverse objectives, including raising awareness about racial inequalities and LGBTQ+ issues. Others mentioned developing pillars and structures like private social investment, corporate volunteering, pro bono practices and DE&I (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) initiatives. Additionally, some firms highlighted their participation in alliances that promote diversity, such as the Law Firm Antiracism Alliance.

For the first time, in 2024, we asked how firms track, measure and communicate the impact of their pro bono work.

A significant number of firms (74 percent) reported that they measure or track their pro bono results and/or impact. Among these, 93 percent of Large Firms, 71 percent of Medium-sized Firms and 49 percent of Small Firms track or measure their pro bono results.

For firms that track impact, we asked what they measure or track. The top three metrics firms reported were: the number of pro bono hours worked (70 percent), the number of clients served and the number of pro bono matters handled (62 percent), and the source of pro bono matters (43 percent).

Our data indicates there remains more focus on quantitative metrics, like number of hours and matters, though a good number of firms are also looking at qualitative metrics such as client feedback (33 percent), community impact (29 percent), outcome of matters (38 percent) and lawyer engagement (40 percent). We will look to see if these figures grow in future years.

We offered firms a text box to provide details of other metrics too, beyond the predefined list, and firms also noted:

• Notional corresponding value if pro bono hours were charged at fee-paying rates
• Qualitative analysis of specific projects
• number of partners involved in pro bono
• Number of teams involved in pro bono

Firms use impact data in different ways and for different reasons. By far, the top ranked way firms use impact data is to demonstrate value provided to the community and to communicate impact, and this finding holds across all firm sizes. Of next importance were (in order): identifying areas for improvement in pro bono practice (i.e. evaluation and learning), professional development, strengthening client relationships and evaluating staff performance.

Finally, we asked how firms spread the word about the impact of their pro bono work. The top three avenues for sharing results of pro bono impact were internal newsletters and blog posts (78 percent), published impact stories on websites and social media updates (67 percent) and awards (61 percent).

Download the full 2024 report