At the 2025 PILnet Global Forum, we convened a pitching session that highlighted seven distinct, yet perfectly complementary, models of pro bono in action. It brought together global data innovators, strategic litigators, clearinghouses, community-facing practitioners, and justice-impact leaders to show what a truly connected pro bono ecosystem can look like.
Each organization arrived with a concrete way to turn legal expertise into impact:
The World Bank Group’s Women, Business and the Law (WBL) team showed how a global benchmarking project, powered by pro bono questionnaires from thousands of lawyers in 190 economies, can drive more than 2,000 legal reforms that expand women’s economic opportunities and strengthen growth. By joining WBL’s expert network, private-sector lawyers are not just answering surveys; they are providing evidence to inform policy debates, helping governments redesign laws that keep women on the economic sidelines.
From Brussels to Rome, three organizations mapped how pro bono is being structurally embedded across Europe. Pro Publico, a Brussels-based clearinghouse, matches grassroots organizations, social entrepreneurs, and international initiatives with top-tier law firms and consultancies, funded by its members so that support remains free and independent for civil society.
Pro Iura complements this with a focus on strategic human rights litigation, building on the Rule 39 Pro Bono Initiative experience to bring impact cases under European and international mechanisms, and now gearing up to protect the rights of foreigners in Italian pre-removal detention centers and other underserved areas.
Entering its 10th year, Pro Bono Italia is institutionalizing pro bono in Italy by systematically involving more and more law firms, lawyers, and in-house counsel on one side, and civil society and non-profits on the other, in its day‑to‑day clearinghouse work and in technical committees that focus on ESG and immigration law matters; turning ad hoc goodwill into a lasting, national infrastructure for pro bono.
The session also spotlighted deeply human, client-facing work. Farrer & Co’s collaboration with the Young People’s Life Café at Royal Surrey County Hospital supports 18–30-year-olds living with terminal diagnoses, providing advice on wills, letters of wishes, guardianship, advance decisions on treatment, and digital legacies. Their team not only contributes to a comprehensive “Wishes, Wills and Whatever” pack, but also sits on the ward answering questions and helping young people get their affairs in order before high-risk surgery; a powerful reminder that pro bono can be both technically complex and profoundly compassionate.
The Paralegal Pathways Initiative (PPI) flipped the traditional legal education model by centering the expertise of people who have experienced incarceration. Columbia and Fordham law students co‑design curricula, facilitate weekly sessions, and learn directly from formerly incarcerated participants who are building careers in law, supported by future pathways like fellowships, LSAT support, and job‑readiness coaching. This approach advances racial equity in the legal field while exposing the profession to an “untapped wealth” of legal knowledge developed inside the system, not just in classrooms.
The Wikimedia Foundation’s impact litigation work tied the conversation to digital rights and the future of knowledge. Through strategic cases and policy engagement, Wikimedia and its partners defend free expression, open knowledge, and the digital commons—issues that shape how communities access information and participate in public life worldwide. By standing alongside these other initiatives, Wikimedia showed how pro bono can protect not just individual clients or single jurisdictions, but the very infrastructure of shared knowledge.
This Pro Bono in Action session was unique because it made the connections explicit. Global datasets like WBL’s rely on local experts; clearinghouses like Pro Publico help match that expertise to real needs; human rights hubs like Pro Iura turn systemic abuses into strategic cases; Farrer & Co and PPI demonstrate what compassionate, community-rooted practice looks like; and Wikimedia pushes the frontier of rights in the digital age.
For everyone in the room, the takeaway was simple and energizing: wherever you practice, there is a place for your skills in this ecosystem—and these seven organizations are ready to connect. For more information on how to get involved, email [email protected].