Further to this positive report, there’s also this one.
Now, statistics from 2008 show that Am Law firms contributed a record number of pro bono hours to the Humane Society of the United States and the Animal Legal Defense Fund, two of the country’s leading animal rights organizations — and those that pursue litigation most aggressively. (A third, the American Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, did not respond to repeated requests for comparable figures and interviews.)
In 2008, major firms contributed 10,273 pro bono hours to the Humane Society, up from about 6,500 in 2007. The Animal Legal Defense Fund doesn’t track pro bono work by the hour, but the organization signed up 113 new volunteer attorneys — a record, and a jump from 98 in 2007 and just 63 in 2006.
