Page 3 - Katten 2021 Pro Bono Annual Review

Building Connections Makes Us Stronger

and Our Service More Significant

In a year in which we continued to work mostly remotely, we celebrate how our
pro bono work helped us to establish, maintain and enhance connections.

We celebrate connecting vulnerable individuals to essential services. We celebrate connecting wronged
persons to justice. We celebrate connecting families in flight to security and freedom. And we celebrate
that in pursuing our pro bono work, we strengthen our connections with our institutional clients who join
us in this work and with our Katten colleagues doing so across multiple offices.

In these pages you will see numerous examples of building all of these kinds of connections through our pro
bono and community service. You’ll see five associates across three offices help one of the nation’s largest
civil rights organizations catalogue state and local barriers to police accountability. You’ll see lawyers for
one of the nation’s largest banks collaborating in a clinic with Katten attorneys to help female immigrants
legalize their status with the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) program. You’ll see attorneys from
virtually every transactional practice connect with charitable, social service, and arts nonprofits to help
them help the communities they serve. You’ll see Katten attorneys connect with attorneys from other law
firms and from legal services organizations to provide counsel to low-income families on basic legal needs:
family law, public benefits, landlord/tenant. And you’ll see our attorneys securing a lasting connection to the
United States of America for refugees from around the world.

At Katten this desire to connect with the communities in which we live and work, and particularly with
those in our communities who most need our help, runs through all our people — partners, associates,
business professionals and other staff. And you’ll see in these pages how they all give of their particular time
and talents (not just legal ones) to enrich the lives of others.
I am so proud of all these folks. A few years ago a survey of some 600 lawyers asked them
why they did pro bono work. Some said they did it because they felt obligated
or because it provided good training or because it was a networking opportunity.
But the largest number said they did pro bono work “because it makes me feel
good about being a lawyer.” It should.

Jonathan K. Baum
Director of Pro Bono Services

KATTEN 2021 PRO BONO ANNUAL REVIEW 1
KATTEN 2021 PRO BONO ANNUAL REVIEW