Lawyers Helping Social Entrepreneurs

Change the World

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The Lex Mundi Pro Bono Foundation was created to support and empower those working on high impact, sustainable solutions to social, economic, and environmental challenges. Established in 2006 as a nonprofit affiliate of our parent organization, Lex Mundi, our mission is to engage Lex Mundi’s global community of 150+ top-tier law firms across 120+ countries to bring critical, high-quality pro bono legal support to social impact organizations. Our flagship offering is our legal matchmaking program. We find and vet quality transactional legal projects with social entrepreneurs and connect them to skilled Lex Mundi member lawyers for assistance. Beyond the matchmaking program, we also provide legal mentoring to help social entrepreneurs become thoughtful and effective consumers of pro bono services; create, curate, and distribute guidance documents on common issues affecting social enterprises; identify resources to assist organizations as they grow, and; develop and facilitate clinics and other speaking engagements for social ventures.

Photo: USAID

Why Social Entrepreneurs

Social entrepreneurs are pioneering new and creative solutions to the world’s most pressing problems. Inspired changemakers work around the world to improve access to education, fight disease, reduce inequalities, combat global warming, protect civil rights, lift people out of poverty, and more. For every grand challenge, there are dedicated social entrepreneurs working on innovative solutions. They are, without question, more successful when they have access to quality pro bono legal advice. And the same characteristics that make Lex Mundi member firms valuable counsel to leading international corporations also make them powerful resources for these social enterprises. The Lex Mundi Pro Bono Foundation knows that access to high-quality pro bono legal services has a tremendous impact. Lex Mundi lawyers help social enterprises scale faster, expand reach, secure funding, and ultimately achieve greater success. We help social entrepreneurs start, grow, and achieve their powerful missions.

Our Model

Groundbreaking leaders that use entrepreneurial approaches to tackle social and environmental issues need high quality legal support. Lex Mundi’s carefully vetted member firms uphold the highest service standards and are among the most experienced and knowledgeable independent law firms in their jurisdictions. Member firms are reviewed on a regular basis to ensure quality, rankings, standing, and service. The Lex Mundi Pro Bono Foundation helps social entrepreneurs by matching them with lawyers from this incredibly qualified network of law firms. This ensures that social enterprises are advised by skilled attorneys with indigenous expertise and local perspectives. Social entrepreneurs can trust the consistent quality and the local market expertise of Lex Mundi member firms around the globe.

Our Collaborators

The Lex Mundi Pro Bono Foundation has working relationships with several non-profits, foundations, impact investors, and other capacity-building organizations. These organizations provide sponsorship and support, financial and otherwise, to the growing community of social entrepreneurs around the world. They have developed prestigious and effective programs that help social ventures maximize their growth and impact. Our Collaborators help the Foundation identify promising, qualified, social entrepreneurs who would benefit from our services. A complete list of our collaborators can be found here.

Our Firms

We channel the expertise of Lex Mundi member firms to provide free transactional legal services to qualified social ventures. Lex Mundi membership consists of more than 150 top-tier firms, representing more than 22,000 lawyers located in 120+ countries around the world. Each is a leading, full-service commercial law firm that provides high quality legal representation and in-depth local market knowledge. See a list of our firms here.

Client Photo: Agros International

How it Works

Eligible social entrepreneurs begin the matchmaking process by filling out our Client Intake Form. Upon receipt and review, the Lex Mundi Pro Bono Foundation team sets up a call to discuss details and assess each client’s needs. While our team consists of attorneys with impact sector experience and can assist social entrepreneurs in identifying, articulating, and prioritizing legal needs, they do not provide the requested legal services or practice law. They do, however, offer mentoring and guidance to ensure that every social entrepreneur working with the Foundation is prepared to be an effective and thoughtful consumer of pro bono services. When the social enterprise is ready to move forward, the Foundation pitches eligible matters to our member firms in the relevant jurisdiction. If a firm indicates capacity and interest in a project, we make an introduction to the volunteer attorney(s), and the firm and client begin their work together. Once a match is made, we step out of the relationship for privilege and confidentiality purposes but remain available to answer questions and manage the relationship as needed. Matches are made on a project-by-project basis, but clients are always free to reach out again for additional legal needs.

Client Photo: APOPO

Statistics Are Half the Story

While the Lex Mundi Pro Bono Foundation has served hundreds of social entrepreneurs on thousands of matters addressing each of the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), statistics alone cannot capture the breadth of its impact. Lex Mundi lawyers frequently form relationships with their pro bono clients, offering additional support beyond the original engagement, becoming nonprofit board members, and participating in service days and other non-legal volunteer activities. Additionally, the Foundation’s longstanding global campaign encouraging pro bono, CSR and ESG initiatives helps to drive dialogue and promote change. By serving social, environmental, and economic changemakers, the Lex Mundi Pro Bono Foundation propels global progress in CSR, promotes more equitable access to legal services, and strengthens the global rule of law. Established more than15 years ago as the first legal pro bono provider focused specifically on social enterprises, the Foundation remains steadfast in its commitment to supporting social entrepreneurs today. We are lawyers are helping social entrepreneurs change the world.

Read our ten-year Impact Report

"By partnering with the Lex Mundi Pro Bono Foundation, MIT Solve has been able to connect our Solver teams to a global network of pro bono legal support, including legal advice on a range of issues from regulatory compliance to intellectual property. The Foundation’s support has helped these social entrepreneurs navigate the inevitable growing pains of building a social impact venture—particularly in such a challenging climate during the COVID-19 crisis."

"Since 2007, Lex Mundi has been supporting Kiva’s mission to connect people through lending to alleviate poverty and create opportunity. Its global network of law firms has been extremely valuable in our efforts to expand and deepen our international operations. Lex Mundi member firms have provided local expertise in close to 40 countries — supporting our success to date in providing more than $1.2 billion in crowdsourced microloans to 3 million borrowers across the world."

"Echoing Green is grateful for the Lex Mundi Pro Bono Foundation’s partnership during this unprecedented time. Our ability to access and share the Foundation’s curated compilation of international resources with our global community of Fellows has been a vital and seamless way to support entrepreneurs as they navigate this crisis."

"Every time we have had a legal need, whether it is expanding to a new country, an employment issue, or lobbying the U.S. State Department, Lex Mundi has been able to match us with a pro bono attorney willing to support our work."

“The Lex Mundi Pro Bono Foundation has been a tremendous resource to our grantees over the past few years, and we especially appreciate their support of our grantees at this time. We find that nonprofits are currently navigating unfamiliar issues on a very fast timeline, and so it is invaluable to have an organization like Lex Mundi Pro Bono Foundation to anticipate their legal needs and proactively provide helpful resources.”

"We owe so much to the Lex Mundi Pro Bono Foundation for the deep support from a number of your talented member firms over quite a long period. We could not have gotten to our launch date without your backing. We remain so impressed with Lex Mundi!"

"The Lex Mundi Pro Bono Foundation has been a close and invaluable collaborator of Ashoka over the years, whether through pro bono support for Ashoka Fellows on a range of issues or fielding internal Ashoka requests that require additional or outside expertise. The resources from various Lex Mundi member firms are heaven-sent, including information that can be passed on to other Ashoka offices around the world or shared with Ashoka Fellows as relevant, ensuring a broad reach by the Global office."

"The support from Lex Mundi began with counseling us when we were negotiating major loans that allowed First Book to scale in an extraordinary way. We reached millions more children with millions more books from that moment on in 2008. Through the years, they have helped us with many fundamental elements that — if you do them wrong, you will have major problems, and if you do them right, the sky is the limit."

"When it came time to expand within Nicaragua and Mexico, the Lex Mundi Pro Bono Foundation introduced us to lawyers in each country that were familiar with local laws and policies. Access to local expertise helped us make the right strategic decisions for our organization."