Community Service

WilmerHale makes a decisive impact on issues facing our local communities by applying the principles of venture philanthropy to innovative partnerships with nonprofit organizations. 

Through our Youth and Education Initiative, the firm provides financial support, pro bono legal representation, in-kind donations and volunteer services to four Boston-based organizations—Cathedral High School, Citizen Schools, Discovering Justice and Hyde Square Task Force. An initiative in our Washington office provides the same comprehensive services to the Maya Angelou Public Charter School and Bread for the City. Our New York office partners with Sanctuary for Families while the Dayton office support Homefull. This signature WilmerHale model emphasizes long-term, involved relationships and capacity building.

The firm contributes regularly to the United Way and to law- and bar-related organizations in the communities where each of our offices is located. Our reputation for philanthropy has been recognized on several occasions, most recently by the Boston Business Journal, which in 2010 named WilmerHale one of the most generous law firms in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Throughout his career, our founder John H. Pickering inspired generations of lawyers with his lifelong and much-heralded commitment to public service. Today the firm pays tribute to his legacy and strengthens its commitment to the community through the annual presentation of the Pickering Fellowships. The WilmerHale Pickering Fellowships program allows selected associates to spend six months each working in a pro bono organization.

The firm also participates in the Boston Bar Association's Public Interest Leadership Program, which recognizes and honors newer lawyers who have demonstrated leadership in their community by engaging in public service, pro bono, and organized bar activities. Each year, the BBA selects up to twelve Public Interest Leaders to participate in the Program, and the firm has been proud to send one associate each year to advance the leadership role of lawyers in service to their community, the profession and the Commonwealth.

WilmerHale hosts numerous volunteer events in its offices, with firm lawyers and staff coming together to serve the community. For example:

• Through its Youth and Education Initiative, created in 1997, the firm promotes the academic and personal development of urban youth through strategic partnerships with local youth organizations. Every week, staff and attorneys in Washington DC tutor 30 high school students from the Maya Angelou Public Charter Schools. Each fall, 40 high school seniors attend our College Application Workshops in Boston.
  
  
• Twice each year, attorneys teach middle school students the basics of litigating a trial in preparation for their own mock trial presentations before sitting judges at courthouses in Boston, New York City and Palo Alto.
  
  
• The firm hires eight Boston-area high school students each year as part of our Summer Leadership Institute and works with urban youth in Boston and Washington through Year Up and Urban Alliance.
  
  
• • Attorneys and staff participate in food and clothing drives in the cities where the firm’s offices are located, with a particular focus on healthy food for the recipients and on supporting sustainable local agriculture.