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| Ben Weinberg |
Weinberg's background reflects a career dedicated to public service. Before joining Dentons in 2008 as pro bono partner, he led the Illinois Attorney General's Public Interest Division, tackling litigation related to civil rights and healthcare fraud.
His earlier experience includes representing low-income clients at the Legal Assistance Foundation of Chicago and clerking for U.S. Circuit Judge William J. Bauer of the Seventh Circuit, roles he says informed his approach to pro bono work.
In interviews with Law360, Weinberg emphasized the importance of partnerships between firms, nonprofits and even clients to tackle systemic challenges like racial injustice. His role as a founding member of the Law Firm Antiracism Alliance, which took off in the aftermath of George Floyd's murder, is one of the highlights in his commitment to collective action and systemic change.
One of Dentons' most recognized initiatives — and one of Weinberg's proudest achievements as a pro bono partner — is the Domestic Violence Appeals Project, launched in partnership with Legal Aid Chicago.
The project, which has been going on for 11 years, addresses the gap in legal representation for survivors of domestic violence. Notably, it helped secure a significant appellate ruling that requires courts to consider requests for child support from custodial parents who are victims of domestic abuse when a protection order is issued against the abuser, setting a precedent that has improved access to justice for survivors across Illinois.
Dentons' pro bono work is not limited to local efforts. The firm has taken on global issues, such as combating child sexual exploitation through a partnership with End Child Prostitution in Asian Tourism, a nonprofit seeking to end sex trafficking of children, and supporting refugees and asylum seekers through a legal clinic on the Greek island of Lesvos.
These projects, Weinberg said, demonstrate the firm's ability to leverage its international network to address pressing humanitarian challenges. Dentons has also embraced technology, using tools like the digital platform Paladin to connect its lawyers with pro bono opportunities that align with their skills and interests.
In this Q&A, which draws from two separate interviews, Weinberg discusses the philosophy behind Dentons' pro bono work, the challenges and successes of its initiatives, and how the firm strives to create meaningful change through its legal resources.
The Q&A has been condensed and edited for clarity.
Can you describe Dentons' pro bono program and what makes it unique compared to other firms?
When I joined Dentons 16 years ago, we were a midsize firm, a "do-gooder" firm that did a lot of pro bono work. Fast-forward 16 years, and the firm has changed, and so has our pro bono program. We do pro bono work all over the globe. We're polycentric — we don't have a headquarters that sends out marching orders to everyone.
Our CEO, Sonia Martin, said: "Obviously, I care about hours. That's what we make and sell. But the average number of pro bono hours is not why we're doing pro bono. We do pro bono because we want to have a real impact." And I agree completely with that. We're not just administering a program. The whole point is how we are contributing to meet the need for access to justice.
Pro bono, by definition, often is reactive. We hear from legal aid organizations about the clients they have that they need help with — someone being evicted, someone experiencing domestic violence, someone being denied government benefits — and you take it on. What pro bono doesn't always have the ability to do is to be strategic and figure out, "Well, if you could attack a specific issue, how would you attack it?"
So we started our domestic violence project. It's been 11 years in implementation.
What is the Domestic Violence Appeals Project, and why is it significant?
One of the issues we identified with Legal Aid Chicago was the problem that the domestic violence courts in Chicago were refusing to consider child support in domestic violence orders of protection proceedings.
Last year, we finally got an appeal that addressed the issue, and we won it. The Illinois appellate court issued a very strong opinion saying that if a domestic violence [victim] adequately pleads [for child support], the court has to consider it, because that's what the law says. That was a huge advance. The whole anti-domestic violence community had been agitating and advocating for this result.
How does Dentons connect attorneys to pro bono opportunities?
Until about 2019, the way to find pro bono work was to talk to your fellow associates, partners and supervisor. There's the good old-fashioned way that had been done since the 1990s: We get emails from legal aid organizations all over the country, and we circulate them.
But in 2018, we started working with a law tech startup called Paladin. Paladin is a clearinghouse where there are pro bono opportunities that have been submitted by myriad legal services organizations.
So, now, we [tell lawyers], "If you have something very particular you want to work on, give me a call or send me an email, but you first go look on Paladin and see what's available." You can filter by what you're interested in doing, the community you want to serve, your skills — and you can find things.
We were then the first firm to adopt the Paladin system. Now it's been adopted by lots of firms, state bar associations, in-house departments and the U.S. Justice Department. We're in discussions with our Europe region and our Canada region about adopting Paladin.
What does having a multinational presence mean to pro bono?
Our global reach means that we can get involved in more issues and in more places. We do work all the time in places all over the world just because we have a footprint that puts us all over the world. The firm is very committed to doing this work.
We're collaborating with the five other firms in Europe. We created and funded a legal clinic on Lesvos, a Greek island that has a giant refugee camp. It's called European Lawyers in Lesvos — lawyers are very creative with names.
How has the pro bono world changed in recent years?
There's been a rise in technology that has been helpful, but hasn't been like a real sea change. The one thing that has really changed over the last couple of years that I think is very promising is that law firms are collaborating in a way that we never did before.
The Association of Pro Bono Counsel, or APBCO, was started in 2006 by five pro bono counsel. There are now nearly 300 members around the world. When I was president of APBCO in 2016, we had 150 members. There's a lot more people who are managing pro bono programs at law firms. That has really allowed us to collaborate.
During the summer of 2020, when George Floyd was murdered, there was [a] seeming consensus about the need to advance antiracism. A small group of pro bono counsel got together and the idea we came up with was some sort of alliance to address racial justice issues: the Law Firm Antiracism Alliance. We pitched it to our firm leaders, and within a couple of weeks, we had 125 law firms. We now have over 300 firms. So, we're collaborating across firm lines, and there are pro bono counsel who are taking the time to think about systemic issues.
What do you see ahead for Dentons' pro bono program?
Law firms are partnering with corporate clients on pro bono work. There are firms that have done it a lot more than we have, but it's definitely becoming an important part of our pro bono program. I'll give you an example.
Last year, we were approached by PayPal, an important corporate client, who wanted to partner on pro bono work. Their general counsel had declared a day in March as "pro bono day" and all their lawyers around the world — I think somewhere around 100 — were supposed to do three hours of pro bono work on that day. They wanted it to have impact and to be meaningful. That's a challenge. It's hard to come up with something that is meaningful, impactful, that you can do from your desk in less than three hours.
At the time, we had already started a project with a global nonprofit called [End Child Prostitution in Asian Tourism] — they work to protect children from sexual exploitation — which wanted to do a research project about the age of consent. We had agreed to do the research in as many countries as possible. So, we proposed to PayPal that they should take this up as a project for their pro bono day.
At the end of those three-hour research sprints, the PayPal lawyers had done the research for every country on Earth. The research is now up on their website, and any nonprofit, any group that is working on protecting kids can go to their website, click on a country in the map and find out the information.
It's meaningful. It's impactful. We're very excited about that project.
--Editing by Jay Jackson Jr.