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Being antiracist requires work on many fronts.  LFAA recognizes and embraces the role that law firms, particularly when acting collectively, can play to help bring about systemic change and racial equity in the law.  LFAA’s goal is simple:  racial equity.  Facilitating pro bono work is the primary mechanism by which we pursue this goal.

• Lawyers and law firms are uniquely positioned to analyze and advocate to change laws and policies that encourage, perpetuate or allow racial injustice. Many legal services organizations have spent decades working to dismantle systemic racism, and the private bar has historically been involved in serving underrepresented communities and individuals, supporting entities that serve those communities and advancing civil rights causes primarily through law firm pro bono programs. Recent events have affirmed and highlighted the need and responsibility for law firms to do more in partnership with legal services organizations to identify and dismantle structural and systemic racism in the law. 

• While not a law firm or legal services organization, LFAA is committed to leveraging the resources of the private bar in partnership with legal services organizations to amplify the voices of communities and individuals oppressed by racism, particularly anti-Black racism, to better use the law as a vehicle for change that benefits communities of color and to promote racial equity in the law.

• The LFAA will facilitate the coordination of its Alliance Firms to best enable legal services organizations and the LFAA to create large-scale, coordinated pro bono projects that are both immediate and long-term in scope. Alliance Firms will dedicate substantial pro bono resources to initiatives that address systemic racism. Law firms acknowledge their ongoing responsibility to increase diversity, equitable access to opportunities and inclusion of people of color within their ranks and, in tandem with the LFAA’s pro bono efforts, the leaders of the LFAA law firms are committed to examining and eliminating internal policies and practices that may perpetuate racial inequities within law firm structures.

• The collaborative efforts of law firms, in partnership with legal services organizations, other sectors of the legal profession and key stakeholders, have the potential to create deeper and more lasting change than through firms acting independently