Hunton Andrews Kurth Receives Gold Award for Pro Bono Service at the Dallas Volunteer Attorney Program’s 2021 Pro Bono Awards

Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP has been named winner of the 2021 Gold Award for Pro Bono Service by the Dallas Volunteer Attorney Program (DVAP), a joint project of the Dallas Bar Association and Legal Aid of Northwest Texas.

The gold award is the highest honor for offices with 100 to 149 attorneys. Hunton Andrews Kurth was selected for this honor for having dedicated more hours of pro bono service to DVAP clients and programs than any other firm of its size with approximately 4,900 hours dedicated to pro bono clients and more than 1,200 hours to DVAP programs. 

The firm was also named 2021 Outstanding Virtual Clinic Sponsor for its support of DVAP’s monthly legal aid intake clinics, now held ‘virtually’ since the start of the pandemic. After DVAP was forced to shutter all 14 of its monthly legal aid clinics in early March, 2020, as a precaution against the growing coronavirus pandemic, Hunton Andrews Kurth attorneys, led by counsel Fawaz Bham, teamed up with DVAP to ensure those in need in the Dallas community still had access to legal resources by launching the organization’s virtual legal aid intake clinic platform. Since the platform’s inception, lawyers from Hunton Andrews Kurth have staffed and conducted 18 straight monthly clinics to date, serving 826 people in need – more than any other firm in the program.  Not only that, the virtual clinic platform has been used by all participating firms to serve over 4,100 people to date, more than ever could have been reached via the former in-person clinic model. 

In addition to the firm’s accolades, Fawaz Bham was selected as the 2021 Lawyer of the Year – the highest award that can be bestowed by the Dallas Bar Association, Legal Aid of Northwest Texas and DVAP on a lawyer. He was recognized as “an outspoken advocate for pro bono legal services” in the Dallas Fort-Worth community. Over the years, his advocacy and leadership has included launching small business clinic workshops for small and emerging businesses by bringing together community partners, hosting open community forums and presenting pertinent legal education topics, launching and maintaining the innovative virtual legal clinic platform that more than 36 law firms, legal departments, law schools and legal associations rely on to connect and service DVAP’s clients, managing monthly virtual legal intake clinics, serving as a faculty member of the Pro Bono Coordinators Retreat and Poverty Law Conference and assisting pro bono clients solve their most pressing problems. Last year alone, he devoted more than 400 hours to pro bono matters as well as serving on the firm’s pro bono committee.

Hunton Andrews Kurth is proud of its community service and leadership among law firms in the United States, where the firm’s tradition of pro bono service is well recognized. At the end of the firm’s fiscal year on March 31, 2021, the firm had donated more than 58,000 pro bono hours to underserved communities. This represented nearly 4.5% percent of the firm’s gross billable hours and commemorates 28 continuous years of meeting or exceeding the Pro Bono Institute’s Law Firm Pro Bono Challenge of donating at least three percent of the firm’s annual billable hours to pro bono service.