The Pro Bono Pledge can be taken in Symplicity. The Pledge can be found by clicking the pro bono button on the homepage. You can find written instructions on How to Take the Pledge and Log Your Pro Bono Hours on our website. You can also watch the short video linked below which walks you through the process. 

Watch: Taking the Pro Bono Pledge and Logging Hours video

Students who fulfill their Pledge and log their hours will receive a Dean's Certificate of Recognition, receive special recognition at graduation, and receive a special notation on their transcript indicating that they completed the Pro Bono Service Initiative.  The graduating student completing and recording the most hours will also receive a special Award of Excellence.

Nothing. The Pledge is voluntary and there are no negative consequences for not meeting your goal.

If you are a 1L student, you should consult with the Associate Director of Public Service and Pro Bono Elise Tincher, who can help you find a project with a manageable time commitment, and that does not require advanced legal research and writing skills. Don't be discouraged if you are unable to do pro bono service during your 1L year! There are ample opportunities in your 2L and 3L years to complete your service.

Qualifying pro bono work must be:

• Legal or policy related, and
• Supervised by a licensed attorney or Law School faculty member

Qualifying pro bono work includes:

• Legal research and writing, client interviewing, client counseling, oral or written advocacy, or representation of individuals in court, administrative or other hearings.
• Lecturing on legal topics or writing informational brochures or web information on legal topics for underserved communities, and service to the legal profession or legal institutions. 
• Assisting underserved or disadvantaged individuals with finding or obtaining needed legal information, general information about what the law says or how the court works, or legal forms.   
• Legal research in connection with a professor's pro bono legal services.
• Training sessions count towards the Pledge hours as long as the trainings are to prepare students for the law-related pro bono work.
• Moot court/mock trial judging or coaching, assisting with voter registration, and participating in mentorship programs involving students interested in pursuing a legal education/career count as pro bono work, but there is a 10 hour cap on the number of hours that may be used to fulfill the Pro Bono Pledge. 
• Hours worked in certain law school clinics that exceed your credit requirements for the Quarter count as pro bono, and so do hours that exceed your summer internship funding award. For example, if you participate in a qualifying clinic that requires 15 hours of service per week, but you work 20, those 5 additional hours are pro bono; also, if you receive guaranteed summer funding to work 8 full-time weeks, but you work ten weeks, remember to log those extra two weeks as pro bono!

Qualifying pro bono work does not include:

• Non-legal public or community service such as volunteering for a homeless shelter, food drive, or park clean-up project. 
• Work on political campaigns.
• Work done for academic credit hours, including work at the University of Chicago Law School Clinics. 
• Work done for financial compensation, including work done in the public sector arena if you received wages or any financial aid award, as well as work completed during a paid law firm summer associate position, even if the work is done on behalf of a pro bono client.
• Legal research related to scholarship, a law journal article or other publication.
• Pro bono work done before you started law school.

Students who find pro bono work independently or who have any questions about whether something qualifies are encouraged to check with the Associate Director of Public Service and Pro Bono, who will make the final decisions on qualifying work.

Because law students are not licensed to practice law, they must work under the supervision of a licensed attorney. Law school faculty members may also supervise student pro bono work.

Students may not engage in legal work on their own; this would be an unauthorized practice of law. Students cannot accept cases from the public and cannot give legal advice and assistance without the supervision of a licensed attorney.

50 hours is the minimum number of hours necessary for students to serve in order to fulfill the Pledge. Students are welcome and encouraged to complete more than 50 hours.

There is no minimum number of hours of work that a single project must require. Employers often need pro bono assistance for just a few hours on a single project. To achieve the 50-hour Pledge, students may handle a number of these smaller, discrete projects or may choose to take on only one larger pro bono project.

The most current pro bono opportunities can be found on the Job Search Guide under the Public Service tab. Please contact the Associate Director of Public Service and Pro Bono for more information, or with any questions.

UChicago Law School provides reimbursement for transportation to pro bono projects attended as a group (three or more students), but does not provide reimbursement for transportation to pro bono work or internships done on a regular basis by an individual student. Transportation reimbursement can cover rideshares, parking costs, gas costs, and/or public transit costs.  For reimbursement, please reach out to the Associate Director of Public Service and Pro Bono Elise Tincher for a W-9 form to complete. With your completed W-9 form, please also send her your receipt or proof of payment, a brief description of the pro bono work done, the name of the students who attended, and the relevant dates. Please also reach out to Elise with any questions as to whether a cost qualifies for reimbursement.

• NALP Directory “Pro Bono/Public Interest” tab
• American Lawyer magazine ranks law firm pro bono efforts each year
• Chambers Associate provides survey results of pro bono hours at individual firms
•  Vault ranks the top law firm pro bono programs
• Pro Bono Institute’s pro bono challenge lists those firms who have agreed to commit a percentage of their firm’s total billable hours to pro bono work
• Watch our most recent panel  about doing pro bono work while in big law here
• The Path to Pro Bono brochure published by The American Bar Association Standing Committee on Pro Bono and Public Service provides guidance to law students on assessing a prospective employer’s commitment to pro bono
• Pro Bono Guide: An Introduction to Pro Bono Opportunities in the Law Firm Setting prepared by Bernard Koteen, Office of Public Interest Advising at Harvard Law School
• Assessing a Law Firm’s Commitment to Pro Bono prepared by Columbia Law School