Encouraging and Supporting Pro Bono
Miller Nash sees service to others as a moral imperative, not simply a professional obligation. Our team works in and gives back to our communities in many ways, including pro bono legal services. Through our pro bono work we try to advance the four pillars of our firm’s vision: our clients, our people, our diversity, and our community.
Every year, Miller Nash donates thousands of hours of free and low cost services to individuals and organizations that could not afford them otherwise. We represent complainants in domestic violence hearings; serve at legal clinics; resolve consumer, landlord-tenant, and insurance disputes; serve as advocates and advisors in civil rights matters; and advise nonprofit organizations that directly serve our communities.
Notable recent pro bono matters include:
- Represented client in Court of Appeals to maintain the protection order she obtained against a stalker.
- Assisted a non-profit educational organization protect and license its online reference center that makes available a wealth of materials on Black history.
- Represented LGBTQ+ groups advocating for an Oregon resident who was denied their petition for a gender marker change.
- Prepared and advanced several clemency petitions, including for an 82-year-old client with a terminal disease who sought transfer from prison to hospice care.
- Structuring complicated financing by several non-profit corporations that enabled a local minority-owned business to manufacture environmentally friendly products.
- Partnering with the ACLU to protect constitutional rights of free speech.
- Securing Portland Playhouse's right to continue providing important community services out of a 105-year-old church.
- Challenging a 75-year prison sentence for a first time, non-homicide offense that was entered against a mentally disabled member of the Nez Perce tribe who defended himself at trial despite previously being found incompetent to stand trial on two separate occasions.
- Advocating for improvements to the working conditions of disabled individuals through a class action that seeks to change the State of Oregon's sheltered workshop program (that confines the individuals and limits their interaction and compensation) to an integrated program.
Community Organizations
We also partner with community organizations to reach more of our neighbors. Below are just some of the legal clinics, organizations, and charities in which Miller Nash attorneys and staff are involved:
- American Civil Liberties Union
- Campaign for Equal Justice (Washington)
- Campaign for Equal Justice (Oregon)
- King County Neighborhood Legal Clinics
- St. Andrew Legal Clinic
- CLEAR Hotline
- Communities Rise
- Kids in Need of Defense
- King County Bar Foundation
- Legal Aid Services of Oregon
- Qlaw Foundation Legal Clinics
- Open Door Legal Services
- Oregon Law Center
- Small Business Legal Clinic at Lewis & Clark Law School
Pro Bono Billable Hour & Bonus Credit
Miller Nash provides attorneys with up to 150 hours of credits of pro bono service towards billable hour and bonus goals, and annually recognizes these efforts with our Clifford N. Carlsen, Jr. Award. This competitive—but friendly—award honors our former partner who championed pro bono and community services, and whose personal efforts included heading the Jackson, Mississippi office of the President's Committee for Civil Rights Under Law during the civil rights movement in the 1960s. The award includes a cash donation by the firm to the pro bono legal services organization of the recipient's choice.