Pro Bono
Zelle supports the efforts of our attorneys to serve the communities in which they live and work, believing that we are better lawyers for living full and balanced lives. To this end, we strongly encourage our attorneys and legal assistants to perform pro bono work.
Our pro bono efforts are varied and rewarding. Examples include:
- Representing a disability rights group in a class action lawsuit challenging discrimination against people with disabilities in access to homeless services in San Francisco
- Counseling a not-for-profit that provides services to children in homeless shelters on legal issues arising out of multi-state expansion
- Providing pro bono legal services to children, veterans, political refugees and low income individuals through local legal aid societies
- Obtaining asylum for an Ethiopian man who had suffered persecution because of his Oromo ethnicity and political activism
- Serving on the boards and committees of legal aid other professional organizations, such as the Public Service Committee of the Twin Cities Cardozo Society, the Children’s Law Center, and Minnesota Diversity in Practice
- Making presentations to local school children about legal issues and the legal system
- Mentoring law students
- Assisting a conservation society to obtain legislation to provide funding for conservation and the arts
In addition to encouraging such traditional pro bono work, Zelle regularly contributes time and money to community charities, and the firm matches the qualifying philanthropic donations of attorneys and staff members. Often the employees in each Zelle office identify worthy causes that can be supported as a group, depending on collective preferences and individual community needs.
