Bill Boies, ’68, Named Recipient of the American Bar Association 2026 Pro Bono Publico Award
ABA 2026 Pro Bono Publico honorees recognized for extraordinary service in the field
A Chicago litigator, a New York trial lawyer and a Midwestern law school’s pro bono initiatives are recipients of the American Bar Association 2026 Pro Bono Publico Award, which annually recognizes individuals and groups for their commitment to volunteer legal services for low-income and disadvantaged persons.
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Bill Boies. Boies is senior counsel at McDermott Will & Schulte in Chicago. He is a nationally recognized litigator specializing in the defense of complex financial class action litigation. For more than two decades, Boies has been a leading advocate for the use of residual and unclaimed class action settlement funds — commonly known as cy pres awards — to support legal aid and other nonprofit organizations serving low-income communities. The awards, a critical funding source for legal aid, totaled more than $77 million nationwide in 2021 (the most recent year the ABA reported overall access-to-justice funding data). When opponents of legal aid funding file procedural and constitutional objections to cy pres awards in large class action settlements and then take appeals, Boies and his firm file amicus briefs for national and local legal aid organizations arguing in support of cy pres awards. He has advised state agencies and bar foundations on adopting state court cy pres rules in Arizona, Illinois, Michigan, Texas, Vermont and Washington. Boies also advises national and state IOLTA programs about political challenges to IOLTA interest going to fund legal aid providers. Boies has personally devoted hundreds of hours to speaking at bar and legal aid conferences and publishing articles about cy pres awards and has recruited a team of top lawyers who have devoted thousands more hours to this work. His expertise in this area has become the catalyst for what is now one of the most impactful pro bono practices supporting legal aid organizations in the country.
Read more at American Bar Association