Danielle Sheer is the chief legal and compliance officer at Commvault, a data security and resilience software company. Views are the author’s own.
As many lawyers know from experience, pro bono work can be valuable and rewarding.
It offers the opportunity to provide legal services to people and organizations that could not ordinarily afford them.
But as the demands on in-house legal departments grow—and economic uncertainty can mean tighter budgets and shrinking workforces—it becomes harder to find time to create the space for your team to participate.
In my nearly two years as chief legal and compliance officer at Commvault, I’ve found a two-part solution to support a pro bono program.
First, it helps to align the work with your company’s core mission.
A second critical step is to block out the noise that can make it hard for your team to peel away from their day-to-day duties.
With this approach, you’re not only adhering to the principle of pro bono—“for the good”—but you’re making your good work good for the company and each other, too.
Our pro bono program began in the traditional way. We partnered with two organizations that operate online resources for legal needs such as helping nonprofits set up corporations.
We also decided to focus specifically on what we’re good at, where we can offer our expertise—the knowledge and skills that we’re fine-tuning every single day—to people who need but who otherwise wouldn’t be able to access it. In our...
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