Holland & Knight, a 1,200-attorney national law firm, offers a unique Chesterfield Smith Fellowship Program where selected associates do only pro bono work for their first two years at the firm while receiving a full salary and credit toward partnership. The program has allowed the firm to recruit top law school graduates, including Rhodes scholars. It represents a significant financial commitment of over $2 million per class but benefits the firm through opening new recruiting channels and satisfying the firm's commitment to pro bono service.

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Most major law firms trumpet their com-
mitment to pro bono work, but the Holland
& Knight national firm has literally put its
money where its mouth is. Participants in the
firm’s Chesterfield Smith Fellowship Pro-
gram do nothing but pro bono work for their
first two years with the firm - but receive full
salary and partnership track credit for the
entire time.
Holland & Knight, a 1,200-attorney firm, has
had a Community Service Team program for
pro bono work since 1990. In 1999, the firm
conceived the idea of the Smith Fellowships,
named for former firm president Chester-
field Smith. Selected law students spend the
summer following their second year with the
firm - half of the summer working with public
interest advocacy groups and half doing bill-
able work for the firm. Those who perform
as expected are invited to join the firm as
full-fledged Smith Fellows after graduation
- unless they are chosen for a federal clerk-
ship - and spend the next two years working
strictly on pro bono cases.
The first class of Smith Fellows consists
of five first year associates and three who
will join the firm upon graduation from law
school or, in several cases, completion
of federal clerkships. And what a class it
is - one Rhodes Scholar, one former U.S.
Supreme Court law clerk, and all eight are
graduates of Harvard, Yale, NYU or George-
town law schools. Gretchen Rohr, the Rhodes
Scholar in the group, worked with the NAACP
Legal Defense Fund in New York after gradu-
ating from Oxford University’s School of
Jurisprudence and completing her first year
at Georgetown Law School. While there, she
worked with Laura Fernandez, a graduate of
Harvard University, a 2002 Yale Law School
grad, and one of Holland & Knight’s first
Smith Fellowship recipients.
“An attorney working with us told me Laura
had a great fellowship, but hadn’t told any-
one about it,” Rohr said. When Fernandez
told her the details, Rohr wasted no time
calling Stephen Hanlon, the firm’s Commu-
nity Services Team director, in the Washing-
ton, D.C. office, to apply. After spending the
summer of 2002 in the firm’s Atlanta office
working primarily on capital punishment
cases with the Southern Center for Human
Rights, Rohr returned to the Atlanta office to
begin her two-year Smith Fellowship as an
H&K associate after graduation and the Bar
exam this summer.
The program represents a significant finan-
cial commitment on the firm’s behalf. Hanlon
did not put an exact dollar figure on it, but
since all Smith Fellows earn a full associ-
ate salary, the outlay figures to be over $2
million for the eight two-year fellowships in
salary, not to mention support service costs.
On the other hand, the program has rewards
for the firm over and above the satisfaction of
providing pro bono service to under-served
clients. First and foremost, it has opened
up new recruiting channels for some of the
country’s top student talent.
“We have not always been a national firm,”
Hanlon said. “We are now, although we’re
sort of the new kid on the block, and this is
our way of introducing ourselves. We’re now
able to attract students from the top of the
class at Harvard, Yale and NYU, and for the
first time we recruited directly from the U.S.
Supreme Court.”
Holland & Knight has traditionally been
among the nation’s leaders in pro bono
service commitment, at 50 hours per lawyer
per year, or 60,000 hours firm-wide. Told of
the H&K program, Equal Justice Works (for-
merly NAPIL) head David Stern said, “That’s
absolutely typical of Holland & Knight.” Lynn
Schultz-Writsel, the organization’s com-
munications director, said, “That’s not only
financial, but a significant investment in kind
on their part. We certainly applaud that com-
mitment.”
Although the full salary allows students
to pursue their pro bono interests without
worrying about how they will repay law
school loans, Rohr says there is more to the
program’s allure.
“I really don’t think any of us are in it be-
cause this is great pay,” Rohr said. “H&K
spends a lot of time ensuring that the people
in the program are really devoted to the mis-
sion of the program.”
This story appeared in the January 2003
edition of The National Jurist, www.nation-
aljurist.com.
Firm offers full time pro bono, full pay
[by Jim Dunlap]
Holland & Knight community service fellowships lure top talent.