Pro Bono

Our pro bono policy states it clearly: “Bryan Cave’s vitality and reputation depend upon our tradition of excellent service to all clients, including those we represent on a pro bono basis. We have a special obligation to make our professional skills and other resources available to those who cannot afford to pay for legal services.”

Our priority is to offer legal services benefiting persons and organizations of limited means, and to advocate for civil rights, human rights, civil liberties and public rights. We want the firm’s pro bono program to benefit our communities, enrich the professional lives of lawyers and staff and establish Bryan Cave as preeminent in providing pro bono services.

Bryan Cave is a charter signatory to the Pro Bono Institute's Law Firm Pro Bono Challenge^SM and strongly encourages all of its lawyers to engage in pro bono work. Regardless of professional prominence or workload, pro bono work is a professional responsibility and can be one of the most rewarding experiences in the life of a lawyer.

In 2006, the firm made an important change to our pro bono policy: to give 100 percent billable credit, including bonus credit, for all pro bono work. There can be no clearer indication of Bryan Cave’s intention to further strengthen our commitment to pro bono legal services. One year after the new policy went into effect, pro bono hours per lawyer rose to 28.5, a 60 percent increase that is a step in the right direction.

The pro bono work done at Bryan Cave reflects the diverse and passionate interests of our lawyers. It includes poverty law; civil rights and public rights law; representation of charitable organizations; and administration of justice. Referrals from local legal services agencies and work for non-profit organizations make up much of Bryan Cave’s pro bono time.

Each Bryan Cave office has written policies and pro bono committees to help lawyers identify and participate in pro bono activities, coordinate firm resources on behalf of pro bono clients and assure that pro bono services are delivered capably, efficiently and effectively. The service provided to our pro bono clients is of the same quality delivered to all clients.

Select Pro Bono Matters

Bryan Cave has numerous pro bono projects of which to be proud. Some significant matters include:

Victim Compensation Fund
After the attacks of 9/11, Bryan Cave Counsel Roberta Gordon represented World Trade Center victims’ families. One lead case brought by Gordon on behalf of the De Martini family as one of 16 cases handpicked by Trial Lawyers Care set precedent for future Victim Compensation Fund rulings.

Frank De Martini is credited with helping guide to safety more than 65 people trapped in the upper floors of Tower 1 before he died. Gordon argued that Port Authority death benefits should not be deducted as a collateral source from the settlement offered to the family of De Martini, a Port Authority civilian employee, because the benefits were contingent on whether his widow remarried before turning 55.

De Martini’s family was awarded a settlement of $1.65 million ($2.33 million before offsets), and the ruling was established as published guidance for future fund cases.

National Public Radio
In St. Louis, Partner Elizabeth Carver filed an amicus curiae brief in the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit on behalf of pro bono client National Public Radio (NPR) in a dispute between its member station KWMU and the Ku Klux Klan.The Klan contended that its First Amendment rights were infringed when its application to underwrite All Things Considered® on KWMU and its accompanying proposed on-air announcement were denied. Carver wrote in her amicus curiae brief that the Klan’s First Amendment rights were not implicated, and that holding in favor of the Klan would threaten the broad editorial discretion given NPR’s member stations by Congress.

The Eighth Circuit ruled in favor of KWMU, agreeing that it had acted within its discretion in denying the Klan’s application.

Firm Earns State Bar ‘Pro Bono’ Award for Housing Project
A long-term pro bono project out of the Kansas City office is helping to revitalize neighborhoods, and earned the firm the Missouri Bar Pro Bono Award in September 2007.

Since early 2006, Bryan Cave has worked with the Ivanhoe Neighborhood Council to pursue abandoned houses in the urban core. The goal is to allow residents in the neighborhood to rehabilitate the properties for new ownership. To date, more than 20 lawyers have helped with the project, contributing more than 900 pro bono hours. Work has included properties in litigation, properties in which we are working with the property owners to make necessary repairs and properties with respect to which the firm is about to initiate lawsuits. Bryan Cave also is helping the Ivanhoe Neighborhood Council in connection with an appeal to the Missouri Supreme Court in which a Missouri statute has been challenged.

Work for Friars Recognized
Partner Mike Ford in the Phoenix office accepted an Environmental Excellence Award from Valley Forward at its 2007 Awards Gala for a pro bono project that helped our client, the Franciscan Friars of California, clean up the former Gibson Mine property. Not long ago, the state of Arizona seemed poised to bring an enforcement action against the friars over contamination seeping from the deserted mine the order partially owned as the result of a donation. The friars had scant resources and no knowledge of either mining or toxic-waste cleanup; Ford stepped in with ideas on how to generate much-needed help from many industries.

The effort resulted in the largest water quality improvement grant ever awarded by the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality to help defray the more than $2 million costs involved, and entailed the removal for reprocessing of more than 100,000 tons of low grade ore.

Firm Earns Award for Work on Immigration Issues
St. Louis Partner Linda Martinez earned the Hispanic Civic Award from St. Louis’ Hispanic Chamber of Commerce for pro bono work she undertook on behalf of businesspeople and landlords in Valley Park, Mo., who fought city ordinances that would penalize them for hiring or renting to illegal immigrants. Martinez and others at Bryan Cave headed a coalition of about 20 area attorneys who sued Valley Park over its ordinance. The law, they argued, promoted racial profiling and would harm businesses and lead to housing discrimination.