Pro Bono United For Justice

Pro bono legal services make a transformative impact on our communities, employees, and our business clients. Kilpatrick honors the legal profession’s responsibility to serve individuals and organizations that ordinarily cannot afford representation even when basic rights and interests are at stake. We believe in a legal system that works for everyone, regardless of economic or social status. Our efforts to close the justice gap provide an excellent platform for our attorneys to develop their legal skills and engage with clients we might not otherwise encounter, making us better and more fulfilled attorneys in the process.

Pro Bono Awards

Reach

Longtime Commitment

Established in 2001, our pro bono program focuses on several areas believed to have the greatest positive impact on society and on individuals, including:

Children’s Well-Being & Education
Homelessness & Poverty
Civil Rights & Criminal Justice
Immigration & Human Rights
Domestic Violence & Violence Prevention
Advocacy for Veterans
Sustainability & Innovation
Nonprofit Organizational & IP Support

Approach

Tailored Approach

Led by a dedicated, full-time pro bono partner, Kilpatrick’s pro bono program leverages our world-class experience in intellectual property, litigation, and corporate law to best serve our communities. We actively forge pro bono collaborations with firm clients, and nonprofit legal organizations in all U.S. offices, recognizing each community’s unique legal needs. Through our participation in already-existing pro bono programs or by actively co-developing new programs tailored to a specific legal need, we have improved the lives of many, while periodically establishing new precedents and triggering headline news.

Related Services

Experience

Formed a Grandparent Adoption Project in 1997 and have since finalized the adoptions of more than 300 children by their relative caregivers.

Revised the Family Abduction Manual in partnership with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.

Represented dozens of tenants in a multifamily subsidized housing community, whose landlord wrongfully assessed fees and threatened them with evictions from public housing.

Pursuing relief for clients in civil rights litigation challenging disparately harsh discipline by schools against Black students and students with disabilities.

Collaborating with the Southern Center for Human Rights to enforce a federal consent order that addresses dangerous and inhumane practices in Georgia’s solitary confinement prison.

Represented eight Afghan women who fled to the U.S. to attend college, and all have been granted asylum and are pursuing permanent residency in the United States.

Collaborated with the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) to represent dozens of Russian and Ukrainian refugees in applying to adjust their status to permanent residency in the U.S.

Advocating for veterans in accessing VA benefits and discharge upgrades.

Maintain trademark portfolios for CARE International, Goodwill Industries International, and Habitat for Humanity International.

Partnered with corporate clients on projects such as (1) performing legal and IP audits for local nonprofit organizations; (2) helping low-income senior citizens with estate planning matters; (3) representing individuals whose low-level criminal records are barriers to housing and employment; (4) advising workers on how to overcome obstacles to restoring their driver’s licenses; (5) seeking relief for victims of gender-based violence; and (6) counseling families at risk of losing their housing.