The American Lawyer magazine recently named Dinsmore & Shohl as one of the nation's top pro bono firms in its July issue. The rankings were based on the nation's 200 highest-grossing firms, ranked by their pro bono score on the most recent "Am Law 200" survey.
Dinsmore & Shohl ranked 88
th in American Lawyer's "Pro Bono Report," boasting an average of
44.6 pro bono hours per lawyer with 39.4 percent of lawyers providing more than 20 hours of pro bono work.
"Our attorneys enjoy serving the community and appreciate having the opportunity to use their training, experience, and skills to provide pro bono legal services," said Mark Vander Laan, Chair of the firm's Litigation Department. "As a result of their involvement, our attorneys are afforded invaluable personal and professional development opportunities."
The firm's formal pro bono effort is geared toward providing legal services to individuals and organizations of limited financial means. Most recently, the firm's Cincinnati office agreed to handle all of Legal Aid's expungements for Hamilton County, Ohio, which will relieve much of the burden the Legal Aid Society faces from the growing number of criminal record expungements its clients seek.
In another significant pro bono matter, nine Dinsmore & Shohl attorneys accepted appointments and wrote briefs for volunteer appellate work in the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. The firm has also begun developing a partnership with Procter & Gamble to have Dinsmore & Shohl attorneys provide support to in-house Procter & Gamble attorneys in the performance of their own pro bono work.
Click Here to view The American Lawyer's 2008 Pro Bono Scorecard.