AARP Legal Counsel for the Elderly (LCE) has for many years had a successful pro bono program that primarily focused on individual cases. However in urban areas with many large and prestigious law firms, larger pro bono projects can be easier to sell to private firms than individual cases. Often the difficulty lies in identifying the right issues, analyzing what can be done, and marketing the ideas in an effective way.
Through the Pro Bono Systemic Initiatives project, LCE proactively identifies and packages law reform measures in a way that they can be successfully marketed to larger law firms on a pro bono basis. LCE engaged in a series of facilitated brainstorming meetings to generate ideas. Next LCE analyzed, evaluated and prioritized these ideas according to pre-set criteria. The LCE Board was energized to recruit law firm representatives to a meeting to showcase the ideas. Finally, the ideas were marketed and assigned specific staff people to collaborate with each firm on each project. There are currently about 12 projects with approximately 15 different large law firms.
The MIE Journal article below fully describes the process.
Contact Information:
Jan Allen May, Director AARP Legal Counsel for the Elderly 601 E Street, NW Washington, DC 20049 Phone: 202-434-2164 Fax: 202-434-6464 jmay@aarp.org
LSC:
America's Partner for Equal Justice 
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