Akin Gump to Receive ABA Pro Bono Publico Award for DACA, Border Projects
(Washington, D.C.) – Akin Gump is proud to share that, in August, the firm will receive the American Bar Association’s prestigious Pro Bono Publico Award in recognition of the firm’s innovative remote pro bono programs, in particular on behalf of immigrants brought to the U.S. as children who are applying for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.
Specifically, the award will recognize the remote clinic that Akin Gump established in 2020 to serve DACA program applicants, which the firm modified in 2021 to help Afghans apply for humanitarian parole. The ABA also lauded the firm for establishing a remote consultation project to assist migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Said Akin Gump pro bono partner Steven Schulman, “We are truly honored that the ABA is recognizing our work with its Pro Bono Publico Award. The last two years have seen a spike in the need for pro bono service for clients of all types, including immigration, and I’m very proud that we were able to devise creative remote ways of helping those in need even during lockdown.”
The Pro Bono Publico Award identifies and honors individual lawyers and small and large law firms, government attorney offices, corporate law departments and other institutions in the legal profession that have “enhanced the human dignity of others by improving or delivering volunteer legal services to our nation's poor and disadvantaged.”
The awards will be presented on August 5, during the 2022 ABA Annual Meeting in Chicago.
This is the second time Akin Gump has been honored with the Pro Bono Publico Award. Ten years ago, the firm received the award in recognition of its groundbreaking work with the legal department of Walmart to develop the first corporate counsel medical-legal partnership in the United States (learn more here).
The firm’s remote DACA application platform was also recently recognized at the 2022 Legalweek Leaders in Tech Law Awards, where the firm won the Innovations in Pro Bono, Law Firm category (learn more here).
Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP is a leading international law firm with more than 900 lawyers in offices throughout the United States, Europe, Asia and the Middle East.
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