Speakers
Immigration Pro Bono Innovations and Challenges
Join us for a discussion around immigration pro bono innovations and challenges in the face of Trump 2.0 and immigration enforcement. Topics will include scope of representation (full/limited scope), expanding representation to include habeas petitions, clinics, research, drafting and other opportunities in the immigration space.
Farida Chehata
Human Rights First
Jenna Gilbert
Morrison Foerster
Winston & Strawn LLP
Language Justice in California: What's New, What's Next
This session is a practical equity-centered overview of recent developments in language justice, language rights obligations, and the barriers that continue to affect linguistically marginalized communities. Participants will explore select federal, state, and local laws, including the federal rollback of language rights protections and critically examine technology’s promise of efficiency alongside the risk of exacerbating barriers to access. The session will highlight creative advocacy strategies and concrete tools for supporting clients who interact with government agencies, institutions, and adversaries.
Alena Uliasz
California Rural Legal Assistance
Cristina LLop
Law Within Reach
Joann H. Lee
Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles
Disaster Recovery Efforts in the Wake of the LA Wildfires
Prior to the devastating 2025 LA wildfire disaster, our community had limited resources for providing disaster legal services. Thankfully, with the help of experienced disaster legal aid providers and new funding, the Los Angeles legal aid and pro bono community was able to quickly pivot to meet the needs of wildfire survivors. Presenters will share lessons learned from the immediate response, collaborations, and ongoing efforts to help survivors navigate disaster recovery. They will discuss the role that law schools and law students can play in disaster legal aid. They will invite discussion on how we as a legal aid and pro bono community can best support the ongoing needs of the impacted community and how we can be better prepared to respond to future disasters and their environmental impacts.
Erin Han
UCLA School of Law
Neesa Sethi
Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles
Skip Koenig
Neighborhood Legal Services of LA County
Limited Scope Pro Bono Immigration Services: A Practical Response to an Overwhelming Need
This session will explore innovative models for engaging pro bono attorneys in immigration work by breaking full cases into manageable, time-limited projects. Many firms hesitate to take on full representation due to years-long backlogs and the risk of attorney turnover, but discrete tasks, such as assisting clients in drafting asylum declarations, conducting country conditions research, or representing applicants at naturalization interviews, offer meaningful ways to contribute without long-term commitment. This session will highlight examples of successful project-based collaborations and discuss how these approaches expand access to justice while deepening attorney engagement.
Rachel Kafele
Oasis Legal Services
Rachel Williams
Morrison Foerster
Housing Justice Is Racial Justice: A Look At Innovative Programs To Combat Homelessness
Housing justice is one of today’s key civil rights issues. Poll after poll show that California voters view homelessness as the single most crucial issue facing the state. The disproportionate impact on individuals and families of color is clear. California sits at the center of creative ways to tackle the problem. This session will explore unique programs to prevent homelessness in the first instance, highlight the efforts to combat criminalization attempts, discuss right to counsel programs, and examine a never-before-attempted project that catalogues, evaluates, and analyzes a wide array of regulations, laws, ordinances, plans, proposals to reduce the incidents of homelessness. This massive research project, originally presented at last year’s Conference, is ready for further discussion, including how AI can be used to sift through thousands of sources to come up with plans that adapt to individual communities with individually certain circumstances. These efforts, unique in their approach, untried in collaboration, will be the basis of discussion focused on addressing this critical racial justice and housing justice issue.
David Lash
O'Melveny & Myers
Michael Feuer
Inner City Law Center
Tristia Bauman
Law Foundation of Silicon Valley
Different Strokes for Different Folks: Differing Models of Pro Bono Support for Nonprofits
Nonprofits are facing increasing legal challenges due to a rapidly changing landscape that includes new executive orders, changes in federal policies, and related issues. Join us to discuss different models of pro bono engagement to support the varying needs of nonprofit clients.
Melissa Hollatz
The Law Foundation of Silicon Valley
Rafi Stern
Cleary Gottlieb
Sarah Wiesner
Justice & Diversity Center of the Bar Association of San Francisco
Building Generational Wealth through Pro Bono
This work started with an idea: we want low-income families to have the same access to estate planning as high-net-worth clients. This has always been a critical tool for building generational wealth, but it becomes even more important as fear grows in our communities. Learn how an idea became a reality that touched hundreds of lives in its first year through pro bono engagement at every level in the firm, from administrative staff to notaries to paralegals and attorneys.
Brooke Weitzman
Community Counsel
Corey Steady
Sheppard Mullin
Crispin Collins
Sheppard Mullin
Isaiah Weedn
Sheppard Mullin
Stronger Together: A Push for Increased Mental Health Collaboration
Pro bono work can be a powerful force for good. It creates meaningful impact for communities, expands services for both long-standing and emerging legal needs, and changes clients’ lives. Thoughtfully done, it can also enhance a lawyer’s personal well-being, purpose, satisfaction, and resilience. This session highlights how collaboration among law firms, mental health professionals, and legal aid organizations can strengthen both volunteer engagement and lawyer wellness. Participants will engage in rich, open conversation about integrating volunteerism into professional routines, building organizational systems that maximize both community impact and personal fulfillment, and meaningfully sharing resources. Examples include encouraging law firms with access to wellness resources to invite pro bono partner LSOs with more restricted budgets to participate in programs, fostering frank conversations that increase kindness and perspective, and treating wellness as a practical skill rather than just a buzzword.
Amanda Jancu
Inland Counties Legal Services
Sirena Castillo
Manatt Phelps & Phillips
Taylor Crotty
Survivor Justice Center
Data with Balance: Captivating Without Becoming Captive to the Numbers
This session explores how legal aid organizations can use data to inspire funders and volunteers without losing sight of mission or community needs. Learn strategies for aligning grant deliverables with real-world impact, effectively communicating data to funders, and requesting modifications when needs shift. This session will examine how data can be misused or oversimplified – and how maintaining integrity in storytelling ensures continued trust, funding, and meaningful service to those who need it most.
Antonia More
Justice & Diversity Center of the Bar Association of San Francisco
Bonnie Rose Hough
Bonnie Rose Hough Consulting
Beyond Pro Bono Legal Services: Firm-Wide Support for Access to Justice
Join us to examine how law firms can transform the landscape for legal aid organizations with limited budgets and resources by offering more than pro bono case partnerships. As a business, law firms have valuable expertise from IT professionals to operations support, administrative legal advice, and more. Learn from real-world examples of using a wrap-around services approach in supporting a legal aid organization with everything from office design to negotiating computer pricing.
Anne Gannon
Community Counsel
Joshua Pearce
Crowell & Moring
Redefining Success in Challenging Times: Preserving Rights, Reimagining Justice
What does it mean to “win” when the rule of law is under sustained pressure? As pro bono work evolves, law firms face growing constraints and concerns about political retribution, leading some to scale back or avoid certain matters while publicly maintaining commitments to pro bono. Public interest organizations are navigating increasing difficulty placing matters involving immigration, LGBTQ+ rights, reproductive rights, and other core civil rights issues as community need rises. Panelists will share practical strategies, reflections on resilience, and new ways to define impact in a changing legal landscape today.
Bianca Sierra Wolff
Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco
Tamara Serwer Caldas
Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton, LLP
