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Overview
Cozen O'Connor is a signatory to the Law Firm Pro Bono Challenge of the Pro Bono Institute at Georgetown University Law Center. The firm's Pro Bono Service Committee is chaired by Douglas B. Fox, a Member of the firm.
Pro bono legal service and community service is an integral part of Cozen O'Connor’s past, present and future. Cozen O'Connor has historically provided a level of pro bono legal service worthy of its national reputation as an exemplary and successful law firm. Cozen O’Connor emphasizes one-to-one attorney-client pro bono relationships in which attorneys provide legal assistance to people and institutions of limited means.
The firm recently established a minimum annual 60-hour pro bono service challenge to its attorneys and legal assistants. In 2005, the firm ranked 28 out of 200 law firms nationally and first in Philadelphia for pro bono service logging almost 20,000 pro bono hours.
Our attorneys provide diverse pro bono legal services. In Philadelphia, we serve as pro bono child advocates, as counsel for the elderly, indigent or homeless, and as legal advisors to numerous charitable organizations devoted to the care and service of needy citizens. Our Chicago attorneys assist disadvantaged citizens in personal bankruptcy proceedings.
In California, our San Diego attorneys represent civilians employed by the U.S. Navy who have refused to submit to anthrax vaccination, while our San Francisco attorneys represent students from low-income families at public school expulsion hearings. In Seattle, our attorneys represent indigent Native Americans in an environmental/land dispute with Washington state officials. And in Dallas, our attorneys and staff support a legal aid clinic.
Numerous attorneys from several of the firm's offices actively serve in leadership positions on boards of local colleges, law schools, hospitals, public interest corporations and charitable foundations. A representative list of such organizations include:
- Atlanta Mentor Program
- Atlanta Volunteer Lawyers Foundation
- Big Brothers/Big Sisters
- Boys and Girls Club of Metropolitan Philadelphia
- Boy Scouts of America
- Bryn Mawr Volunteer Fire Company
- Cherry Hill Rotary Breakfast Club Foundation, Inc.
- Chicago Volunteer Legal Services
- Children’s Law Center
- Clayton Dabney Foundation for Kids with Cancer
- Committee of Seventy
- Crohn's and Colitis Foundation
- Croton Community Land Conservancy
- Crozer Chester Medical Center Foundation
- Dallas Museum of Natural History Association
- Dallas Volunteer Attorney Program
- Defender’s Association of Philadelphia
- Friends of Schuylkill River Park
- Friends United for Need
- Gesu School
- Georgia Legal Services
- Habitat for Humanity
- Harborview Center for Sexual Assault & Traumatic Stress
- Haverford Library
- Homeless Advocacy Project
- Houston Volunteer Lawyer's Program
- Immigrant Family Advocacy Project
- Jewish Family and Children's Services of Philadelphia
- Jewish Federation of Delaware
- Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia
- King County Court Appointed Special Advocates
- King County Kinship Services
- King County Mediation Services
- Lawyers for the Creative Arts
- Legal Aid of North Carolina, Inc.
- Legal Assistance Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago
- Legal Clinic For The Disabled
- Legal Services for the Elderly
- National Multiple Sclerosis Society
- National Museum of American Jewish History
- Northwest Immigrant Rights Project
- Partners in Education
- Philadelphia Community Health Alternatives
- Philadelphia Homeless Advocacy Program
- Philadelphia Leadership Foundation
- Philadelphia Orchestra
- Philadelphia Reads Program
- Philadelphia Regional Performing Arts Center
- Philadelphia Support Center for Child Advocates
- Philadelphia VIP
- Philadelphia Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts
- Police Athletic League of Philadelphia
- Roman Catholic Diocese of Dallas
- Rutgers University School of Law Bankruptcy Pro Bono Program
- San Francisco Legal Services for Children
- Seattle Corporate Council of the Arts
- Shoah Visual History Foundation
- The Burn Foundation
- United Jewish Communities
- Volunteers for the Indigent
Cozen O'Connor has received, on several occasions, the prestigious Justice William Brennan Award. All of our offices participate in the pro bono program and many have received awards and recognition for their work, including among others:
- 2008 – The firm was honored with the 2008 National Law Journal Pro Bono Award, in recognition of the firm's role as lead private counsel in Lozano et. al v. City of Hazleton, the landmark immigration case that captured national attention last year.
- 2008 – Seventeen attorneys in the Philadelphia office were named to the 2007 Pro Bono Roll of Honor of the First Judicial District (FJD) of Pennsylvania, in recognition of their work providing pro bono services to litigants in the Philadelphia Courts.
- 2007 – The firm was honored with the 2007 Frederick Douglass Human Rights Award from The Southern Center for Human Rights. The award recognizes the firm’s work protecting the fundamental rights of Guantánamo Bay detainees.
- 2007 – The firm was awarded the 2007 Philadelphia Bar Association Citizens Bank Pro Bono Award, which recognizes a Philadelphia law firm that has demonstrated dedication to delivering pro bono legal services in and around the City and County of Philadelphia.
- 2007 - Steven Lee Rodriguez named Outstanding Volunteer in Public Service by San Francisco Bar Association's Volunteer Legal Services Program for the second year in a row.
- 2006 - Margaret Thompson recipient of the Legal Services Recognition Award from the Philadelphia Bar Foundation’s Philadelphia Homeless Advocacy Project.
- 2006 - The Dallas office received the 2006 Dallas Bar Association Volunteer Attorney Program (DVAP) Gold Award for pro bono services in the “Under 50 Dallas Office Attorneys” category. For the third year in a row, the office received the first-place award for accepting and closing the most DVAP pro bono files for any law firm in the category.
- 2006 - Richard R. Rardin honored for ongoing pro bono work for abused and neglected children by the Rocky Mountain Children's Law Center.
- 2006 - Steven Lee Rodriguez named Outstanding Volunteer in Public Service by San Francisco Bar Association's Volunteer Legal Services Program.
- 2005 – According to the American Lawyer Media: National Pro Bono Report, the firm ranked 28th of 200 law firms nationally, and was the top ranked Philadelphia firm.
- 2005 - Recipient of SeniorLAW Center's Legal Services Award.
- 2006 - Philadelphia Support Center for Child Advocates awards Matthew J. Siegel Distinguished Advocate Award
- 2005 - Seattle office received the Amicus Award from the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project
- 2004 - Chicago office named for the second year in a row to the Public Interest Law Initiative (PILI) Honor Roll in recognition of its pro bono work
- 2004 - Pro Bono Attorney of the Year Award from Pro Bono for Nonprofits, a program of the Mecklenburg County Bar awarded to Michael L. Minsker (deceased) and Anna E. Daly
- 2004 - Recipient of the 2004 Philadelphia Volunteers for the Indigent Program (VIP) Justice William J. Brennan Jr. Award for providing free legal services to the greatest number of VIP clients.
- 2003 - Dallas Volunteer Attorney Program named Anne Cook its 2003 Pro Bono Coordinator of the Year and Sheree Landry its 2003 Pro Bono Support of the Year
Additionally, many of our attorneys received individual public recognition for their pro bono legal service. Several attorneys are recipients of the Philadelphia Bar Association's Craig M. Perry Community Service Award for civic leadership. Other attorneys of the firm have received national accolades for obtaining, in one case, a presidential commutation of a California prisoner's life sentence, and in another, a governor's commutation of a death sentence just five days before the prisoner's scheduled execution.