Maslon Meets the Pro Bono Institute's 2023 Pro Bono Challenge for Ninth Consecutive Year

Maslon is pleased to announce that it has met and exceeded the 2023 Pro Bono Institute's Law Firm Pro Bono Challenge® for the ninth consecutive year.

The Law Firm Pro Bono Challenge is a commitment made by major law firms around the country to devote at least 3% of their annual billable hours or a set number of hours per attorney to the provision of pro bono legal services to low-income and disadvantaged individuals, families, and nonprofit groups. The challenge is administered by the Law Firm Pro Bono Project of the Pro Bono Institute.

A majority of Maslon's attorneys participated in qualifying pro bono work in 2023. In total, Maslon attorneys contributed 3,432 of their hours to pro bono service in 2023. Maslon's 2023 pro bono service included:

• Through referrals from Advocates for Human Rights, representation of asylum applicants from Afghanistan, El Salvador, and Nigeria who were forced to flee their country.
• Successful recovery of unpaid ticket revenues owed to local schools and arts organizations after Brown Paper tickets and Events.com, which purchased Brown Paper, had initially refused to pay the money.
• Successful representation of a woman whose husband's business partner demanded she pay a large sum of money after her husband unexpectedly passed away.
• Authoring of a friend-of-the-court brief filed by the ACLU-MN and the ACLU Voting Rights Project in a voter suppression group's lawsuit that likely would have made it harder to vote absentee and have that vote count. People with disabilities, elderly voters, military voters, the poor, and people of color would have been most affected. The Minnesota Supreme Court rejected the lawsuit.
• Successful representation of a tenant in an appeal of his eviction and denial of his emergency tenant remedies action, as well as a modification of a prior speeding ticket conviction.
• Providing legal advice to clients through community partners' legal clinics, including the Volunteer Lawyers Network Legal Access Point Clinic, Wills for Heroes, and LegalCORPS. 
• Representation of minors involved in child protection proceedings in partnership with the Children's Law Center of Minnesota.

"It is our privilege as attorneys to work on behalf of those who would not otherwise have access to legal representation," said Jevon Bindman, partner and chair of Maslon's Pro Bono Committee. "Pro bono work is also our moral and ethical responsibility. It is fundamental to the integrity of the judicial system and maintains our firm's long-standing commitment to community service."