Pro Bono

Akin’s global pro bono practice leverages the experience, knowledge and passion of our lawyers, advisors and business services personnel to maximize access to justice, community development and the rule of law. Our long-standing partnerships with legal services organizations worldwide are an essential component of our pro bono practice.

Worldwide, we represent refugees seeking asylum, tenants fighting eviction, veterans seeking health benefits, domestic violence survivors, nonprofit organizations and other clients in need.

Advancing Access to Justice

Our lawyers engage in the issues of the day through individual representation, public interest litigation, legislative counseling and transactional counseling. For instance, our transactional lawyers structure sophisticated deals for a wide range of pro bono clients, from sovereign governments in the developing world to charter schools serving lower-income students.

Akin utilizes all of our personnel to advance access to justice. In recent years, Akin lawyers devoted, on average, more than 90 hours to pro bono clients per year, and more than 70% of our lawyers worked on pro bono matters. Business services personnel have used their skills to reimagine the provision of pro bono services, including developing inventive platforms that use technology to reach and serve vulnerable populations.

Watch videos discussing our work.

Industry Recognitions

The American Bar Association (ABA) recognized these high-impact collaborations between Akin lawyers, business services personnel and legal services partners, by honoring the firm with its prestigious Pro Bono Publico Award for a second time. The award recognized our creative approach to serving our pro bono clients through innovative remote pro bono programs. Likewise, Akin was named a Bloomberg Law 2022 Pro Bono Innovator for using “creative ways to get around barriers for their clients” and coming up with “unique solutions to tackle complex legal matters.” Read the press release.

Accolades

• Ranked 13th on The American Lawyer's 2024 Pro Bono Scorecard: National Report out of the Am Law 200 firms
• "Excellent Performer" for pro bono work in Chamber's Associate Satisfaction Survey 2024
• ABA Pro Bono Publico Award
• Bloomberg Law Pro Bono Innovators
• NLADA Beacon of Justice Award
• Legalweek Leaders in Tech Innovations in Pro Bono Award Law Firm category
• Advocates for Human Rights Volunteer Award
• Euromoney’s Global Women in Business Law Award (shortlisted)
• IFLR Middle East Awards Pro Bono Team of the Year (shortlisted)

Learn more about our recognitions.

Our Programs and Initiatives

• Legal Services Organizations
• Pro Bono Scholars program
• Equal Justice Works

Corporate Client Collaborations

We provide resources to assist U.S. and U.K. companies in developing pro bono policies and creating projects for their legal departments.

Pro Bono Representations

Honoring our Military Veterans for their Service

• We work closely with the National Veterans Legal Assistance Project (NVLSP) and Veterans Consortium to assist military veterans seeking the benefits they earned through service to our country
  • Through NVLSP, we have represented nearly 40 veterans, involving more than 100 Akin timekeepers donating more than 5,000 hours since 2014
    • Four Pro Bono Scholars have spent summers at NVLSP
  • Through Veterans Consortium, we have represented nearly 30 veterans, involving 90 Akin timekeepers donating more than 3,500 hours since 2017
    • With AT&T, Akin funded an Equal Justice Works fellow at the Veterans Consortium from 2017-2019
  • Our partner, Michael DiLernia, founded VetLAG (Veterans Legal Assistance Group)
    • Since 2014, Akin has donated 4,387 hours by more than 100 timekeepers over 22 matters.

Combatting Anti-Semitism

• Through our representation of Holocaust survivors, Akin brokered an historic bilateral treaty between the US and France to establish a $60 million fund to compensate those deported to Nazi camps by the French railroad SNCF. 
• Akin partnered with the US Holocaust Memorial & Museum to obtain copyright permissions for essential archival material for its “Americans and the Holocaust” exhibit, devoting more than 2300 hours across more than 60 timekeepers.
• In the wake of October 7, Akin worked with the Brandeis Center to advise families with children in K-12 public schools facing anti-Semitism in public schools and to evaluate anti-Semitic activity in labor unions. More than 40 timekeepers have devoted more than 250 hours to this work.

Supporting Evangelical Ministries

• Akin continues to support Mountain Gateway, a Texas-based Evangelical ministry, to free and then resettle Nicaraguan prisoners of conscience. Working with the executive branch and members of Congress, including Robert Aderholt (R-AL), we helped negotiate the release of these Evangelical pastors from Nicaraguan prison and obtain refugee status for them in the United States.  We are still working to bring additional Mountain Gateway pastors to the US.
• Akin is partnering with the Texas-based Jaco Booyens Ministries to combat human trafficking by developing plans for state and federal anti-trafficking courts.

Protecting Religious Freedom

• Barnett v. Short: Akin, through an amicus brief filed by the Harvard Law School Religious Freedom Clinic, supported the religious freedom of Dewey Austin Barnett, II, a devout Christian who practices his religion by reading the Bible.  While incarcerated in Jefferson County, Mr. Barnett was held in solitary confinement and deprived of the Bible for a month.
• Akin partnered with Liberty Legal Institute in 2007 to defend the teaching of the Bible in public school in Ector County, Texas.

Negotiating Hostage Releases

• Akin has helped negotiate the release of hostages and prisoners of conscience from hostile nations, including the release of Ryan Corbett by the Taliban in January 2025.