“Prudential was founded on the belief that financial security should be within reach for everyone, and that philosophy rings true with our commitment to pro bono work and providing support to historically underserved populations, especially in Newark, New Jersey, where the company has been headquartered for almost 150 years. We are not content with the status quo and our Law, Compliance, Business Ethics and External Affairs (LCBE) pro bono team is dedicated to delivering pro bono legal services to communities most in need of help. Through partnerships with various non-profit organizations in the legal services community, LCBE employees utilize their professional skills and experience to help the ever-increasing number of individuals and veterans in need of free legal support.
While New Jersey is a progressive state in many ways, it has some of the highest racial disparities in the nation. There is a staggering racial wealth gap with a median household wealth of $322,500 for white households, $26,100 for Latina/o households, and $17,700 for black households. This wealth gap is at the core of much of the pro bono work and financial giving of Prudential as we seek to close financial divides in New Jersey and around the world.
Over the past 5 years, more than 275 Prudential legal volunteers have donated their time to 8 non-profit legal services organizations, including Volunteer Lawyers for Justice (VLJ), Pro Bono Partnership, Legal Services New York City, Connecticut Statewide Legal Services, Connecticut Veteran’s Legal Center, KIND, Catholic Charities, and the Dallas Bar Association Volunteer Attorney Program. In 2023, 100 Prudential LCBE volunteers dedicated over 840 hours to pro bono legal service, including helping 167 VLJ clients, impacting 369 people when including people living in their homes. Over the past 14 years, Prudential’s LCBE employees have more than 5,000 pro bono hours with VLJ, helping 1,547 clients, and benefiting over 3,768 people.
Prudential’s pro bono program began in 2010 in response to the Great Recession and accompanying debt crisis, providing legal services to families facing crippling consumer debt through VLJ’s Debt Relief Legal Program. 14 years later, LCBE employees are still volunteering with VLJ’s Debt Relief Legal Program, but our pro bono services have expanded to other areas of high unmet legal need including, tenants’ rights, divorce assistance, criminal records expungement, asylum work for persecuted LGBTQ+ immigrants, and holistic legal services for veterans.
In the wake of COVID-19, we worked with our pro bono partners to ensure that clinics could operate virtually by helping redesign clinic operations and technology while providing greater flexibility to reflect employees’ post-pandemic lives working from home. In addition, Prudential has expanded our pro bono program to actively seek out non-attorneys to assist at many of the clinics offered, assisting with research, intake forms etc. Each month, LCBE executive assistants, paralegals, and administrative staff volunteer in a variety of ways to support their legal services partners, increasing the capacity of those non-profits to assist clients. In 2023, 37 non-attorneys volunteered over 300 hours to pro bono volunteerism.
We understand that providing pro bono services creates financial challenges with the resultant impact on staffing for our pro bono partners. We made it a priority in the post-pandemic financial environment, to look for new and innovative ways to ensure that clients continued to receive a high-quality clinic experience in addition to high quality legal services. For example, we created a pre-clinic administrative clinic for VLJ where these volunteers prepare case files in advance of client meetings so that clinic time is spent reviewing the client’s legal issues and not on administrative tasks. In addition, during clinics, our non-attorney staff provide day-of administrative support and interpretation services for non-English speakers. The vital role professional staff plays makes pro bono programming run smoothly, has led to high levels of client satisfaction, and has led to the development of innovative models of flexible volunteerism that has resulted in more services for clients.
At Prudential, pro bono volunteerism is part of our DNA and runs deep in our corporate culture, with the general counsel and senior leaders setting the tone by regularly volunteering themselves. We encourage our attorneys and non-attorneys alike to participate in pro bono work and support volunteers by sponsoring pro bono programming, recognizing pro bono service in evaluating performance, and allowing them to use Prudential time and resources for pro bono activities. Pro bono is just one way in which Prudential employees give back to our communities as Prudential employees donated over 25,000 volunteer hours across the country. Internally, we celebrate our volunteers every year at an annual department town hall, with the nomination of employees for a pro bono award that includes the right to designate a charity of each winner’s choice for a substantial cash gift. In addition, attorneys and non-attorneys “earn” $10 for each hour volunteered, to be donated to the non-profit of their choice at the end of the year. “
From the American Bar Association. Please click or tap here for more information.