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HP’s pro bono legal program helps communities, employees — and HP

A family facing eviction receives legal advice that helps them to stay in their home.

Victims of Hurricane Ike get the legal assistance they need to apply for funding to rebuild their damaged homes.

The homeless find legal support to obtain identification cards, allowing them to apply for work and public assistance.

These are just a few examples of how HP’s legal department is making a difference through pro bono services. Altogether, HP lawyers and staff volunteer thousands of work and personal hours each year - giving free legal advice to assist homeless people, low-income individuals, aspiring entrepreneurs and the organizations that serve them.

Starting a pro bono program

When Michael Holston, executive vice president and general counsel for HP, became head of HP legal in 2007, he made pro bono work a priority for the department. A year later, the HP legal team kicked off a program encouraging team members to volunteer at least 20 hours of pro bono work a year.

In the first year of the program, HP legal staff in the U.S. volunteered more than 1,000 hours of work and personal time to deliver free legal advice and services. “There are numerous ways to give back—and many members of HP’s legal team do so by using our professional expertise and unique skill set to make a positive impact in our communities,” said Holston.

Even non-legal staff have jumped on board. Holly Gonzales, deputy general counsel at HP’s site in Fort Collins, Colorado, was happy to learn that more than half of her office staff, many of them non-lawyers, stepped up to the challenge. “People were really interested in short-term projects they could do from the comfort of their desks,” Gonzales said. “They wanted to fit it into their daily routine.” More than 150 members of the HP legal department are now doing pro bono work—a number that continues to rise.

HP enables all employees in the US to use 4 hours per month in work time for volunteering, as part of HR policy. The personal commitment from Holston and his people in HP Legal means they are going the extra mile!

Building community, experience and teamwork

Holston sees legal pro bono service as a tremendous opportunity for any company to contribute to the communities around them as well as offering great opportunities to build experience and teamwork for the employees who volunteer to become involved. That’s certainly been the experience at HP. ”First and foremost,” he said, “it is just good corporate citizenship, something on which the Hewlett-Packard Company and many other companies pride themselves. But more than ‘doing the right thing,’ it is a great way for lawyers to obtain experience and broaden their skill sets in new areas of the law, as well as an opportunity to sharpen existing skills.”

Pro bono legal work has also proven to be great for team building. Paul Porrini and Triny Lee, both at HP’s Palo Alto headquarters, gathered their teams to staff a free legal clinic in San Francisco. The HP volunteers found the experience to be an excellent way to get to know each other better while doing something rewarding.

According to Bruce Ives, an HP lawyer, the higher energy level and wide range of work has made his job more fun. “HP was always a good place to work, but today it’s a much more interesting place to work. There’s a buzz that makes you want to go into the office every day.”

Taking pro bono global

In 2010, we are expanding our pro bono program internationally. HP has legal teams in 45 countries, and many of them already have programs in place.

In the UK, for instance, HP legal team members volunteer with an organization to advise young entrepreneurs on how to navigate employment, property, litigation and commercial matters. The work has stirred up a palpable level of excitement. “The chance that this pro bono effort could help local small businesses to grow and provide employment opportunities to tens, hundreds and maybe even thousands of local people is just too good an opportunity to miss, ” said James Ormrod, vice president and associate general counsel of HP enterprise business in Europe.


» Volunteering & Community Engagement Home Page

HP’s commitment to global social innovation

As part of HP’s commitment to making a difference in the communities and the world where we live and work, HP employees have the opportunity to make a contribution through volunteering. Today, we’re focusing our energy and skilled efforts to support social innovation in education and health for underserved communities and in critical-need situations, where the application of technology and our HP people’s skills can make a real contribution to improving people’s lives. We are launching core programs in countries around the world, including a volunteering drive for National Lab Day in the US, and we’re finding new ways for HP people to be able to contribute via our VolunteerMatch system. Find out more at HP Global Social Innovation.


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