Boult, Cummings, Conners & Berry, PLC

Boult Cummings is stongly committed to pro bono work. The firm's long history of support for pro bono work is commemorated annually by the Nashville Bar Association's Joseph G. Cummings, Sr. Pro Bono "Volunteer of the Year Award," in honor of one of our name partners. Lawyers from the firm provide pro bono legal services regularly through a wide variety of local social service and cultural organizations, including the Nashville Pro Bono Program, which is jointly administered by the Nashville Bar Association and the Legal Aid Society of Middle Tennessee and the Upper Cumberlands; the Tennessee Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts; and, through collaborative projects with public interest law firms and other lawyers in private and corporate practices.

Boult Cummings' lawyers take seriously the admonition in the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct to provide pro bono legal work to those who cannot afford it. To this end, Boult Cummings is a signatory to the Pro Bono Institute's Law Firm Pro Bono Challenge. The following text from the Pro Bono Institute's web site (www.probonoinst.org ) explains this effort:

"The Pro Bono Institute's Law Firm Pro Bono Challenge^SM is a unique global aspirational pro bono standard. Developed by law firm leaders and corporate general counsel, the Challenge articulates a single, unitary standard for one key segment of the legal profession - the world's largest law firms. Major law firms that become Signatories to the Challenge acknowledge their institutional, firm-wide commitment to provide pro bono legal services to low income and disadvantaged individuals and families and non-profit groups. To help firms honor this commitment, the Law Firm Pro Bono Project assists firms in creating a supportive environment that promotes pro bono service. The Challenge definition of pro bono has become an industry standard, utilized not only by major law firms but by the legal media in reporting the pro bono contributions of large firms."

Boult Cummings' commitment to this effort takes the form of the following formal policy, which was adopted to encourage all of the firm's lawyers to do pro bono work and to provide formal administrative support for pro bono work. Having a formal policy (1) makes clear to all lawyers and recruiting candidates that the firm strongly supports pro bono work, (2) sets standards for what constitutes pro bono work that will be supported by the firm and (3) provides for easy intake and administration of pro bono work.

Boult, Cummings, Conners & Berry Pro Bono Policy

Boult Cummings is firmly committed to pro bono work. All lawyers have an ethical obligation to help address the unmet legal needs of indigent individuals and charitable institutions. Accordingly, Boult Cummings expects its lawyers to devote a significant amount of time to pro bono work. The firm is a member of the Pro Bono Institute and has adopted the following Statement of Principles for the Pro Bono Institute's Law Firm Pro Bono Project:

Statement of Principles

Recognizing the growing severity of the unmet legal needs of the poor and disadvantaged in the communities we serve, and mindful that major law firms must - in the finest traditions of our profession - play a leading role in addressing these unmet needs, our firm is pleased to join with other firms across the country in subscribing to the following statement of principles and in pledging our best efforts to achieve the voluntary goals described below.

Our firm recognizes its institutional obligation to encourage and support the participation by all of its attorneys in pro bono publico activities. We agree to promulgate and maintain a clearly articulated and commonly understood firm policy which unequivocally states the firm's commitment to pro bono work.
To underscore our institutional commitment to pro bono activities, we agree to use our best efforts to ensure that, by no later than the close of calendar year 2008, our firm will annually contribute, at a minimum, an amount of time equal to 3 percent of the firm's total billable hours or 60 hours per attorney to pro bono work.
In recognition of the special needs of the poor for legal services, we believe that our firm's pro bono activities should be particularly focused on providing access to the justice system for persons otherwise unable to afford it. Accordingly, in meeting the voluntary goals described above, we agree that a majority of the minimum pro bono time contributed by our firm should consist of the delivery of legal services on a pro bono basis to persons of limited means or to charitable, religious, civic, community, governmental and educational organizations in matters which are designed primarily to address the needs of persons of limited means.
Recognizing that broad-based participation in pro bono activities is desirable, our firm agrees that, in meeting the minimum goals described above, we will use our best efforts to ensure that a majority of both partners and associates in the firm participate annually in pro bono activities.
In furtherance of these principles, our firm also agrees:
1. To provide a broad range of pro bono opportunities, training, and supervision to attorneys in the firm, to ensure that all of our attorneys can avail themselves of the opportunity to do pro bono work;
2. To ensure that the firm's policies with respect to evaluation, advancement, productivity, and compensation of its attorneys are compatible with the firm's strong commitment to encourage and support substantial pro bono participation by all attorneys; and
3. To monitor the firm's progress toward the goals established in this statement and to report its progress annually to the members of the firm and to the Law Firm Pro Bono Project.
This firm also recognizes the obligation of major law firms to contribute financial support to organizations that provide legal services free of charge to persons of limited means.
As used in this statement, the term pro bono refers to activities of the firm undertaken normally without expectation of fee and not in the course of ordinary commercial practice and consisting of:
1. The delivery of legal services to persons of limited means or to charitable, religious, civic, community, governmental and educational organizations in matters which are designed primarily to address the needs of persons of limited means;
2. The provision of legal assistance to individuals, groups, or organizations seeking to secure or protect civil rights, civil liberties or public rights; and
3. The provision of legal assistance to charitable, religious, civic, community, governmental or educational organizations in matters in furtherance of their organizational purposes, where the payment of standard legal fees would significantly deplete the organization's economic resources or would be otherwise inappropriate.