Kathleen Wach serves Miller & Chevalier's Pro Bono Counsel, a position dedicated entirely to coordinating and administering the firm's pro bono program. As the Pro Bono Counsel, Ms. Wach maintains liaison with public interest organizations and other sources of pro bono projects, and advises firm lawyers of relevant pro bono opportunities. Since Ms. Wach’s arrival at the firm in 1999, the pro bono program has received numerous accolades. In 2001, the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs awarded the firm with an Outstanding Achievement Award. The following year, the firm’s pro bono representation on workers’ rights issues was recognized by the Employment Justice Center. In recent years, associates of the firm were named Pro Bono Attorney of the Year by the District of Columbia Bar and Volunteer of the Year by the Employment Justice Center.
Miller & Chevalier recognizes and strongly supports the professional obligation of all its attorneys to make available legal services to needy individuals, the disadvantaged, and nonprofit organizations engaged in work for the public good. While recognizing that this professional obligation is essentially an individual one, the firm urges all its lawyers to contribute their services and provide financial support for such work to the extent they are able. Consistent with this commitment, the firm's policy is to accord pro bono work the same care and diligence as fee-paying work and to make the firm's resources fully available to lawyers engaged in such work. Pro Bono work is considered in the same manner as fee generating work in determining the advancement of associates in the firm.
Miller & Chevalier’s commitment to pro bono legal representation is longstanding. The firm is a founding member of the Law Firm Pro Bono Project, and for more than a decade has been a signatory to the Pro Bono Challenge, donating at least 3% of its billable hours to pro bono work each year.
In addition to a variety of pro bono engagements in areas such as family law and landlord/tenant, firm lawyers have been involved in the following notable pro bono matters in the past several years: an employment discrimination action in federal district court that resulted in a multi-million dollar jury verdict; multiple successful political asylum applications and appeals before the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services and the Immigration Court; an ongoing class action suit against the District of Columbia challenging the constitutionality of its workers compensation program; and representing the Government of Mexico as an amicus in a death penalty case in Texas. Firm attorneys also supervise the American University tax clinic, which represents low-income and indigent individuals, and regularly represent the Humane Society of the United States, the American Red Cross and the Myelin Foundation ("Lorenzo's Oil") on a variety of matters.