Pro bono and corporate social responsibility initiatives are not readily susceptible to precise metrics for assessment. International and cross-border pro bono work in particular typically involves broad and complex problems that often require attention by multiple and diverse stakeholders and possibly the application of multi-jurisdictional and/or international law. How might lawyers reasonably evaluate whether their volunteerism effectively remediated a humanitarian issue, for example?

Notwithstanding the challenges of developing useful methodological approaches, those who commit resources and allocate legal personnel to address such issues on a voluntary basis want to ensure that their investment will have meaningful impact. Some qualitative assessment analysis is especially important as projects are proposed and refined. This program will explore these issues, looking at ways to measure the return on social investment while accommodating the inevitable tension between the need to deploy legal services to critical humanitarian issues and the lack of precise predictive qualitative impact measurement metrics.

Speakers:

• Yasmin Batliwala, Chief Executive Director, Advocates for International Development, London, England
• Nicholas Menzies, Justice Reform Specialist, World Bank, Washington, DC
• James H. Cottrell, Jr., Partner, Deloitte Financial Advisory Services LLP, Washington, DC