We talk a lot about the gap between what law school teaches and what practice demands. It\u2019s practically a genre of legal commentary at this point. But pro bono work presents a uniquely thorny version of this problem. When a first-year associate shows up at a Biglaw firm not knowing how to draft a motion, the firm should<\/em> have every financial incentive to train them. For all the rosy talk about pro bono commitments, they aren\u2019t as eager to burn time on training. <\/p>\n Unless they\u2019re still trying to cover the pro bono payola they gave the Trump administration<\/a>. <\/p>\n Law students, meanwhile, are doing a staggering amount of pro bono work. The class of 2025 contributed more than 5.1 million hours of legal services<\/a>, amounting to over $178 million worth of work. With their souls still somewhat intact, law students are a motivated population and could do even more if we cut down the millions of opportunities for undertrained students to find themselves worried that they\u2019re in over their heads.<\/p>\n Opportunities to assist asylum intake clinics, perform guardianship casework for children, engage in innocence-related research, or simply help the elderly navigate benefits claims are all available. The skills gap between \u201cI just finished Civ Pro\u201d and \u201cI need to interview a detained asylum seeker\u201d is vast but not insurmountable. Like a lot of pro bono challenges, it\u2019s a matter of bringing the resources to bear.<\/p>\n Paladin CEO Kristen Sonday framed the partnership in terms that should resonate with anyone watching AI reshape associate work:<\/p>\n Integrating legal training with hands-on pro bono experience is the future of legal education. Especially with the advancement of AI and associates\u2019 work changing so rapidly, there is no substitute for real-world pro bono experience.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Artificial intelligence isn\u2019t going to replace lawyers<\/a>, but it\u2019s going to reduce the number of lawyers it takes to get things done<\/a>. It\u2019s a distinction that won\u2019t matter to the person left unemployed, but it should inform how law students approach their future careers. When firms don\u2019t need as many bodies to perform bottom rung tasks, the people who keep their jobs will be the ones already ahead on developing the higher level reasoning and client-facing tasks. And pro bono work offers a time-honored avenue to developing those skills early. <\/p>\n Paladin launched its law school platform last summer<\/a> in collaboration with 30 schools, and since then law students have signed up for over 5,600 pro bono cases through the platform. Adding PLI\u2019s training resources to that pipeline delivers practical, on-demand training led by expert faculty at no cost to students. <\/p>\n PLI\u2019s Kirsten Talmage pitched the partnership as building a pipeline: <\/p>\n This initiative will help schools deliver trusted, experiential training that\u2019s practical and meaningful, while building a stronger pipeline of law students who will carry pro bono forward into firms, in-house teams, and every corner of practice.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Even though this is directed at law students, the impact promises to carry over. Giving eager, service-minded law students real learning and genuine experience can give them the confidence to keep doing good work when they graduate and start drafting purchase agreements to acquire orphanages to work the client\u2019s coal mines. Lawyers who develop pro bono habits in law school are far more likely to continue that work in practice. But lawyers who had a bad pro bono experience \u2014 either because they felt unprepared, unsupported, overwhelmed, or all three \u2014 tend to quietly opt out once they have the option.<\/p>\n If the current generation of Biglaw partners won\u2019t stand up, maybe training the next generation to actually know what they\u2019re doing when they volunteer will produce lawyers with both the skills and the spine to do the work that needs doing.<\/p>\n The post Tackling The Overlooked Obstacle To Pro Bono Work: Not Having A Clue How To Do It<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n Some practice areas easily lend themselves to pro bono work. Criminal defense lawyers can step up for indigent defendants and commercial real estate attorneys can help a non-profit organization find a new headquarters. It\u2019s a bit tougher to figure out what a 40 Act lawyer is going to do. While the biggest barrier to pro bono service will always be professional apathy, don\u2019t overlook the problem of willing lawyers who feel lost and unqualified about the particulars of pro bono work.<\/p>\n That feeling is even more pronounced among law students who don\u2019t really know how to do anything yet.<\/p>\n But a new partnership aims to help law students get the specific training they need to help the community. Pro bono management platform Paladin<\/a> and the Practising Law Institute<\/a> just announced an initiative designed to integrate PLI\u2019s training programs directly into Paladin\u2019s law school pro bono platform. The idea is straightforward: when a law student signs up for a pro bono matter through Paladin, they\u2019ll also get access to targeted, skills-based PLI training tailored to that specific type of work.<\/p>\n We talk a lot about the gap between what law school teaches and what practice demands. It\u2019s practically a genre of legal commentary at this point. But pro bono work presents a uniquely thorny version of this problem. When a first-year associate shows up at a Biglaw firm not knowing how to draft a motion, the firm should<\/em> have every financial incentive to train them. For all the rosy talk about pro bono commitments, they aren\u2019t as eager to burn time on training. <\/p>\n Unless they\u2019re still trying to cover the pro bono payola they gave the Trump administration<\/a>. <\/p>\n Law students, meanwhile, are doing a staggering amount of pro bono work. The class of 2025 contributed more than 5.1 million hours of legal services<\/a>, amounting to over $178 million worth of work. With their souls still somewhat intact, law students are a motivated population and could do even more if we cut down the millions of opportunities for undertrained students to find themselves worried that they\u2019re in over their heads.<\/p>\n Opportunities to assist asylum intake clinics, perform guardianship casework for children, engage in innocence-related research, or simply help the elderly navigate benefits claims are all available. The skills gap between \u201cI just finished Civ Pro\u201d and \u201cI need to interview a detained asylum seeker\u201d is vast but not insurmountable. Like a lot of pro bono challenges, it\u2019s a matter of bringing the resources to bear.<\/p>\n Paladin CEO Kristen Sonday framed the partnership in terms that should resonate with anyone watching AI reshape associate work:<\/p>\n Integrating legal training with hands-on pro bono experience is the future of legal education. Especially with the advancement of AI and associates\u2019 work changing so rapidly, there is no substitute for real-world pro bono experience.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Artificial intelligence isn\u2019t going to replace lawyers<\/a>, but it\u2019s going to reduce the number of lawyers it takes to get things done<\/a>. It\u2019s a distinction that won\u2019t matter to the person left unemployed, but it should inform how law students approach their future careers. When firms don\u2019t need as many bodies to perform bottom rung tasks, the people who keep their jobs will be the ones already ahead on developing the higher level reasoning and client-facing tasks. And pro bono work offers a time-honored avenue to developing those skills early. <\/p>\n Paladin launched its law school platform last summer<\/a> in collaboration with 30 schools, and since then law students have signed up for over 5,600 pro bono cases through the platform. Adding PLI\u2019s training resources to that pipeline delivers practical, on-demand training led by expert faculty at no cost to students. <\/p>\n PLI\u2019s Kirsten Talmage pitched the partnership as building a pipeline: <\/p>\n This initiative will help schools deliver trusted, experiential training that\u2019s practical and meaningful, while building a stronger pipeline of law students who will carry pro bono forward into firms, in-house teams, and every corner of practice.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Even though this is directed at law students, the impact promises to carry over. Giving eager, service-minded law students real learning and genuine experience can give them the confidence to keep doing good work when they graduate and start drafting purchase agreements to acquire orphanages to work the client\u2019s coal mines. Lawyers who develop pro bono habits in law school are far more likely to continue that work in practice. But lawyers who had a bad pro bono experience \u2014 either because they felt unprepared, unsupported, overwhelmed, or all three \u2014 tend to quietly opt out once they have the option.<\/p>\n If the current generation of Biglaw partners won\u2019t stand up, maybe training the next generation to actually know what they\u2019re doing when they volunteer will produce lawyers with both the skills and the spine to do the work that needs doing.<\/p>\n The post Tackling The Overlooked Obstacle To Pro Bono Work: Not Having A Clue How To Do It<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Some practice areas easily lend themselves to pro bono work. Criminal defense lawyers can step up for indigent defendants and commercial real estate attorneys can help a non-profit organization find a new headquarters. It\u2019s a bit tougher to figure out what a 40 Act lawyer is going to do. While the biggest barrier to pro […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":145256,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-145317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xira.com\/p\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Headshot-300x200-0wIVZ3.jpg?fit=300%2C200&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145317"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145317\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/145256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/abovethelaw.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/03\/Paladin-PLI-Student-Dashboard.png?resize=1080%2C674&ssl=1\" "\\"\\"")
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Joe Patrice<\/a>\u00a0is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. Feel free to\u00a0email<\/a> any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky<\/a> if you\u2019re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n
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\nJoe Patrice<\/a>\u00a0is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. Feel free to\u00a0email<\/a> any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky<\/a> if you\u2019re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n