Private Law Firms as Transnational Advocates

Top private law firms increasingly offer their services as advocates for societal needs at no or low cost—big law pro bono.

This work changed significantly over the past decade: firms take on more pro bono activities, professionally organize those in-house, and do so over a wider geography, in particular the Global South.

While traditionally engaging in litigation, pro bono lawyers have now expanded towards the full range of activities of transnational advocacy: they train and educate stakeholders, they advise international institutions and non-profit organizations, and they engage in institution-building.

To do so, they rely on powerful resources, not least lawyers who went to the best law schools, ever-increasing revenues, and highly influential networks.

However, we lack systematic knowledge on how big law does good and with which implications for transnational advocacy.PROBONO is the first project to tackle this key research question at a crucial point in time.

The project’s claim is that big law pro bono is crowding NGOs and local organizations out of their traditional advocacy space.

These firms are not affected by the shrinking space observed for traditional human rights defenders and they are both accustomed to and better equipped for navigating democratic backsliding and authoritarian contexts.

As these firms gain exclusive influence on law- and policy-making across levels, they change the organizational ecology of the field—with as yet unknown consequences. This project studies the patterns, practices, and consequences of private law firms as transnational advocates.

It collects and analyses unique quantitative data and conducts in-depth qualitative case studies on big law pro bono for women’s rights and the right to a healthy environment.

PROBONO significantly advances our knowledge of big law pro bono and its empirical and normative implications for transnational advocacy, bridging debates in International Relations and International Law.