The University of Tennessee College of Law has created a program to encourage pro bono service and to provide public recognition for law students who give significant time to pro bono activity. In the fall of 2002, the College began administering an honors system for students to report the hours of pro bono service that they have completed. The Student Records Office will receive student reports and will build a cumulative record for each student who reports time spent during law school on eligible pro bono service.

All students at the College are encouraged to give at least 50 hours of pro bono service over the course of their law school careers. Some students will do many more hours of service than that, but all enrolled students who log at least 50 eligible hours will receive a public recognition near the time of their graduation. Hours should be reported in the semester during which they were performed, or soon after the break during which they were performed, except that members of the class of 2003 and 2004 may report pro bono hours they performed before this program was initiated. Criteria for eligibility are summarized below.

(1) Work for which a student is compensated, either with pay or with academic credit, is not eligible for inclusion in the Student Pro Bono Honors Program.

(2) Activities that qualify as "pro bono service" for purposes of this program are as follows:

The foregoing definition of pro bono was adapted by the UT law faculty from guidelines suggested by the Law Firm Pro Bono Challenge of the Pro Bono Institute . We urge students to familiarize themselves with this and other definitions of pro bono, and with the various ways that the legal profession has defined its pro bono responsibility. Examples (some of which appear on this website) can be found in existing and proposed ethical rules, in standards promulgated by projects such as the Pro Bono Institute, and in resolutions adopted by many local bar associations. The severe extent of unmet legal need in our society – especially for persons and groups of limited means, and for those who suffer from other kinds of social disadvantage – has been documented repeatedly in studies undertaken by a range of non-profit groups and professional associations, and it adds special urgency to the pro bono obligation.

This is a young program whose first honorees graduated in May 2003, and the College is eager for student and community feedback. In light of that feedback or other future experience, we may change some of the features of the program, including these guidelines. However, any hours logged by a student will be credited toward the Pro Bono Honors recognition as long as they accord with the guidelines that were in existence at the time the service was performed. If in the future, the minimum number of hours required for recognition at graduation is prospectively increased, the total hours required for an individual student to achieve recognition in his or her final semester will be no greater than the hours the student was told to expect at the beginning of his or her first year.

PDF Form for Logging Pro Bono Hours:

A PDF copy of the form for logging Pro Bono hours is available here. To report completed pro bono hours, please download the file, print the form, complete the necessary information, and submit the form to the Records Office. (Paper copies of the form are also available at the Records Office.)