From its founding, Lowenstein Sandler has been committed to advancing the public interest and serving communities in need. The Lowenstein Center for the Public Interest embodies this commitment, directing the firm’s strong pro bono program and other forms of civic and philanthropic engagement. Through these efforts, the Center addresses significant social problems and offers meaningful assistance to low-income and other vulnerable persons along with the organizations that advocate for and support them. This work engages the full range of the firm’s talents and reflects the core values that imbue all of the firm’s efforts: to perform work of the highest quality in a manner that maximizes results for our clients and causes.
Looking back over the past 10 years, I’m struck by the number of bridges we’ve built to connect communities in need, legal service organizations, and the private bar. These bridges take time to construct. The pro bono clients we serve have no direct access to law firms. When they can, these clients connect with legal service organizations, which in turn direct some of them to firms like this one. In this sense, the legal service organizations are the center pillars of our bridges: They do the outreach, screening, and intake on which we depend to be connected with pro bono clients; and they conduct the trainings, provide the materials, and offer the mentoring our volunteers need to be equipped to represent these clients.
The Lowenstein Center for the Public Interest has reciprocated, not only with pro bono time and financial support, but also by forging new connections for our legal service partners. For example, we represent several legal service providers for immigrant children in the class actions challenging the family separation policy. As the class actions proceeded, the children’s lawyers grew concerned because the particular needs of several groups of children had been overlooked. We stepped in to negotiate with class counsel on behalf of the providers’ child-clients, ultimately appearing in the class cases to advocate for solutions. We thus helped ensure that the lawyers with the closest connections to hundreds of separated children could give their clients a voice in the impact litigation.
We’ve also engaged leading clients of the firm in pro bono practice. We are entering the fourth year of full operation of a tenancy clinic we run with Prudential and Volunteer Lawyers for Justice, and the Prudential volunteers have gained real expertise in protecting clients from imminent eviction, as evidenced by the extraordinary success rate of clinic clients. In a similar vein, we represented several major corporate clients in filing an amicus brief to preserve DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) so that valued employees would not lose the right to work and face a renewed threat of deportation.
We engineer and maintain these bridges to create meaningful opportunities to serve the people and causes that move us. Given the enormity and range of the issues our pro bono clients encounter, we need as dense a network as we can build. As always, our profound thanks to our volunteers, the clients who trust us with their challenges, and our legal service and corporate partners who join us in serving those who would otherwise lack access to justice.
Warmly,
Catherine Weiss
Chair, Lowenstein Center for the Public Interest
Lowenstein Sandler
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pro bono work
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dedicated to pro bono
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dedicated to
pro bono work
served by Lowenstein
lawyers
dedicated to pro bono
work by each firm lawyer
