Executive Summary

The 2024 TrustLaw Index of Pro Bono marks the 10th anniversary since the Index was first launched in 2014. Compiled with data received from 209 law firms in 123 jurisdictions, representing nearly 100,000 lawyers, it provides in-depth insights into the evolving global pro bono landscape.

The responding firms provided more than 3.5 million hours of pro bono, with lawyers dedicating an average of 35.6 hours over the year, compared with an average of 32 hours in 2022. This is higher than the average working week in the OECD. Globally, 57 percent of lawyers engaged in pro bono and 43 percent of lawyers at firms that participated in the Index dedicated ten or more hours of their time to pro bono work.

The state of pro bono varies region to region, but overall, we continue to see a strong commitment to pro bono, with a heartening rebound in average hours from 2022, from 32 to 35.6 hours. We see the sustained influence and benefits of adopting pro bono policies, committees, coordinator roles and other forms of pro bono infrastructure. Incentives that encourage lawyers to do more pro bono, from setting targets to counting pro bono hours to fee earning targets, continue to play an influential role as well.

This year, we delve into pro bono teams, staffing, relationships between pro bono and other corporate social responsibility teams within firms and pro bono budgets—with evident benefits to senior level oversight of pro bono and dedicated resources (financial and otherwise) to help the practice grow. We are pleased to find that many firms are tracking their pro bono impact and there is growing attention to factoring diversity into pro bono programmes.

Overall, the findings present a rich picture of pro bono around the globe.

The 2024 Index of Pro Bono marks the 10th anniversary of the survey, which was first launched in 2014. To mark the occasion, this year’s report includes a dedicated section looking back over a decade of global pro bono trends.

We see that, having reached a high-water mark during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, lawyers’ average pro bono hours and engagement per year have risen from 2022 levels but not yet returned to levels seen in 2020. We highlight factors that may be influencing average hours and engagement over the years, including market forces, the ebb and flow of pro bono need, and changes in Index survey participation over time.

Over time, we can chart the rising influence of the so-called “business case” for pro bono. While desire to support the community remains at the top of the list for why firms do pro bono, we see a notable rise in other motivations, especially in relation to staff (training and skills development and retention) and clients (marketing and alignment with client interest).

To nurture a robust pro bono programme, we can derive lessons from what works over the years. In particular, we see the sustained positive influence of formalised pro bono infrastructure and incentives on hours, particularly in Large and Medium-sized Firms whose larger size tends to benefit from more cohesive coordination. As ever, the right mix of infrastructure and incentives will be particular to each team, but at an aggregated level and over time, we know doing something is better than nothing, and certain interventions (e.g. counting pro bono hours to billable targets) tend to be associated with higher hours than others.

Finally, access to justice continues to top of the list of firms’ priorities for pro bono—it has been a stalwart since the first Index in 2014 and it is expected this will continue. However, over the years, it is notable to see the focus of firms’ other pro bono efforts shifting, from early attention to certain areas like development and microfinance and education, to growing emphasis on immigration, refugee and asylum matters, climate and environment and LGBTQ+ rights—no doubt these trends reflect rising global attention, threats and shifting needs for pro bono support.

Pro Bono and Firm Size

Firms that participate in the Index are classified as Large, Medium-sized and Small, based on the number of fee earners in each category. We see that lawyers at Large Firms tend to do more pro bono compared to Small and Medium-sized Firms. This year, lawyers in Large Firms averaged 36.3 hours, while those in Medium-sized and Small Firms averaged 16.8 hours and 15.9 hours, respectively.

In addition to looking across all fee earners, we also look specifically at partner engagement levels because we know this can be an important factor for pro bono adoption within firms. Partners at Large Firms averaged 21 hours of pro bono, whereas partners in Medium-sized and Small Firms averaged 8 and 9.1 hours of pro bono, respectively.

Why Firms do Pro Bono

As in prior years, we sought to understand why firms do pro bono. Of the responding firms, 93 percent reported desire to support the community as the primary reason for engaging in pro bono, which is consistent with the findings in prior Indexes. Interestingly, however, we see growing emphasis on other factors, with staff training and retention, and alignment with client interests and marketing all rising—which may reflect growing attention to the so-called “business case” for pro bono and market or client demands to show commitment to pro bono.

Pro Bono Clients, Focus Areas and Sources of Matters

Pro bono needs vary around the globe and, in the Index, we seek to understand where firms are focusing attention when engaging in pro bono work, the main recipients of pro bono and where pro bono matters are coming from.

Access to justice continues to be the top priority across all firms at 65 percent, followed by immigration, refugees and asylum at 44 percent, and human rights at 37 percent. This is not surprising given the growing reality and risk of displacement, driven by conflict, climate change and other factors, and the 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, LGBTQ+ rights, and environment, climate and biodiversity. This year, for the first time, we asked about ethnic/minority rights and racial justice, and nearly a quarter of firms reported prioritising this area.

Firms also told us access to justice was the top new or growing area of focus for the next 12 to 24 months (40 percent), followed by environment, climate and biodiversity (35 percent), and women’s rights (25 percent).

Registered charities and non-profits continue to be the most common pro bono clients among law firms, with 86 percent of firms offering pro bono services to these recipients, followed by social enterprises at 69 percent and individuals in need at 67 percent. For the first time, we asked about support for small businesses, as well as journalists and newsrooms and found that 54 percent offer pro bono to small businesses and 20 percent to journalists or newsrooms.

Firms most commonly offer pro bono clients legal research (87 percent) and corporate/commercial advice (84 percent). Large Firms are much more likely to support strategic litigation on a pro bono basis, compared to Small and Medium-sized Firms—not surprising, given the time and resources typically involved in mounting such actions.

Most firms source pro bono clients and matters through direct approaches (74 percent), legal clinics (58 percent), clearinghouses (54 percent) and local law societies or bar associations (52 percent). Large Firms are more likely to engage with legal clinics and clearinghouses, whereas Medium-sized and Small Firms tend to work more with local law societies and bar associations. We have seen a meaningful rise in legal clinics as a source of pro bono (up 14 percent).

Pro Bono Infrastructure

Dedicated structures and resources are near industry standard for pro bono and help support its growth. We see that 88 percent of firms had pro bono infrastructure (whether pro bono policies, a pro bono committee, pro bono coordinators, or some combination of those).

Policies

The adoption of a pro bono policy is increasingly common and, indeed, in this year’s Index 71 percent of firms reported having a pro bono policy, up from 64 percent in 2022. Policies are more common among Large and Medium-sized Firms, at rates of 97 and 79 percent, respectively, compared with 37 percent of Small Firms. Fee earners at firms with a pro bono policy recorded 43 percent more average pro bono hours than fee earners at firms without a policy.

Committees

Pro bono committees also continue to be a commonly deployed, effective structure in firms. Overall, 57 percent of firms report having a pro bono committee, similar to 59 percent in 2022. Large and Medium-sized Firms more frequently use pro bono committees (76 and 83 percent, respectively) compared to Small Firms (28 percent). The presence of a pro bono committee also correlates with higher average pro bono hours. Lawyers at firms with a pro bono committee average 26 percent more pro bono hours compared to those without a committee.

Coordinators

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. Firms with a designated person coordinating the firm’s day-to-day pro bono work average almost three times more pro bono than firms without pro bono coordinator—36.2 hours of pro bono per fee earner, while firms without such a person do 13.9 hours.

Pro Bono Roles and Teams

Dedicated pro bono staff

Building on the 2022 Index, we delved into the resources invested in firms’ pro bono staffing and teams, as well as exploring the relationship between pro bono and other CSR (or similar) teams and pro bono budgets.

Globally, 72 percent of responding firms had 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, there is considerable variation among firms, ranging from firms with nil or one pro bono employee, to a team of 22 mostly full-time pro bono staff.

There is a corelation between having a pro bono employee and the level of pro bono performed, with firms that hired at least one pro bono employee recording 20 percent more pro bono hours than those that did not. However, there is variation in the effect by firm size, with the relationship being most pronounced for Large Firms: Large Firms that hire a pro bono employee do more than five times the average pro bono hours of firms without one.

Around half of firms (52 percent) reported that a partner was the most senior individual in charge of pro bono within the firm, with the next most common senior person being a director or counsel. We considered the seniority of individuals responsible for pro bono work within the firm to explore if designating that responsibility to someone more senior (such as a partner, head, director or counsel) impacts average hours and levels of engagement in pro bono. We find that firms that put people with more senior roles in charge of pro bono report nearly three times the average pro bono hours of firms that give this responsibility to people in less senior roles.

Pro bono and CSR

This year, we aimed to explore the relationship between pro bono and other corporate social responsibility (CSR) and similar initiatives. Of firms that have such a programme, 45 percent reported that their pro bono and CSR programmes are managed separately, while 26 percent are managed jointly (the remaining did not specify). The data signals that firms with a dedicated pro bono programme performed 42 percent more pro bono hours than firms with jointly managed programmes.

Pro bono budgets

26 percent of firms reported that they have a pro bono budget above $100,000 USD and 31 percent have budgets over $50,000. Large Firms are most likely to have larger budgets. On the other end, Medium-sized and Small Firms most commonly report more modest budgets between $1,000 and $10,000. Pro bono budgets are growing or holding steady, with half of firms responding that their budget is larger than it was two years ago and 46 percent having the same budget.

Firms that allocate a pro bono budget of $50,000 or more had more than three times higher average pro bono hours than their counterparts with lower budgets. In this way, budget allocations correlate to higher pro bono engagement, making the financial investment seemingly well worth the return.

Incentivising and Rewarding Pro Bono

Incentives

Firms use various incentives including financial compensation, appraisals and setting targets to encourage lawyers to participate in pro bono work. The findings show that 80 percent of firms include pro bono work in their appraisal processes. This correlates with the number of pro bono hours worked by lawyers, where firms that factor pro bono into their appraisal processes perform almost twice the hours of firms that do not.

The responses show that 57 percent of firms consider pro bono work in their compensation decisions (for non-partners). Firms that factor pro bono activities into their compensation decisions also do almost twice the hours of those that do not.

Targets

Pro bono targets, whether mandated by regulatory bodies or established as formal requirements by the firms themselves, impact the overall number of pro bono hours worked. In 2024, 42 percent of responding firms overall reported having a pro bono target. Firms that adopt targets, whether mandatory or aspirational, reported 46 percent higher hours than firms without targets, and lawyers at firms with mandatory targets average 26 percent more pro bono hours than those with aspirational targets.

This is the first year we are publishing data on average 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.

Diversity in Pro Bono

We asked firms if they have a formal diversity commitment in relation to their pro bono work.

Overall, 33 percent of firms reported having a formal pro bono diversity commitment, up from 27 percent in 2022. Of those, 29 percent of firms reported that their diversity commitments take the form of support for organisations addressing issues affecting diverse communities, while 22 percent of firms indicated that they prioritise staffing pro bono matters with a diverse team of lawyers. Only 6 percent indicated that they prioritise building a diverse talent pipeline to fill pro bono roles as part of their diversity commitment.

Regionally, firms in Australia reported the highest diversity commitments at 55 percent, followed by the Americas at 47 percent, while Africa and the Middle East had noteworthy diversity commitments at 38 percent. Firms in the United States reported lower diversity commitments, down from 40 percent in 2022 to 36 percent in this year’s Index.

Pro Bono Impact

For the first time, we explored how firms track and measure the impact of their pro bono work. We see 74 percent of firms measure or track their pro bono results or impact.

For firms that track impact, we asked what they measure or track. The top three metrics were: the number of pro bono hours worked (70 percent), the number of clients served (62 percent) and the number of pro bono matters handled (62 percent). There is still more focus on quantitative numbers (e.g. hours) when tracking impact, but a sizable number of firms are also tracking qualitative metrics such as client feedback, community impact, outcome of matters and lawyer engagement.

Firms are prioritising using impact data to demonstrate value provided to the community, to communicate that impact, to evaluate staff performance and to identify areas for improvement in pro bono practice. In terms of communicating pro bono impact, the top three avenues used by firms are internal newsletters and blog posts (78 percent), published impact stories on websites and updates on social media (67 percent), and awards nominations (61 percent).

Download the full 2024 report