There is also the more basic job of making sure our safety net keeps functioning. The non-profit Pro Bono Partnership was founded a year ago by the Corporate Bar Association to do just that. The association's members are drawn from the corporate ranks of both Westchester and Connecticut's Fairfield County. It matches up a volunteer corporate lawyer with non-profit organizations that need his or her services. Non-profits often have problems similar to corporations, although they may not have the means or ability to deal with them properly A lawyer from the partnership can help them do such things as update bylaws, develop personnel policies and enforce them, and the like.
Problems can arise any time.
In the course of a telephone interview late in the afternoon the day before Thanksgiving, the partnership's executive director, Richard S. Hobish, excused himself to take a call. Hobish will find someone from a corporate tax department to help them. It appears to have been successful. Still, Hobish and the president of the organization, Robert E. Healing, say there is much inore to be done. Healing, who is also the corporate counsel for General Electric, was the driving force behind getting the organization off the ground, Hobish said.