CT LAW FIRM VOLUNTEER OF THE YEAR

Pullman & Comley LLC, was selected by Pro Bono Partnership as its Connecticut program Law Firm Volunteer of the Year and honored at an awards ceremony April 24 at Real Art Ways in Hartford. Pro Bono Partnership is a nonprofit organization that coordinates the provision of free legal assistance to other nonprofits fulfilling important social and community services needs in Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York.
“At Pullman & Comley, volunteering and pro bono work are an essential part of who we are as a firm,” said Adam J. Cohen who coordinates pro bono outreach programs for Pullman & Comley and serves on the Connecticut Bar Association’s Pro Bono Committee.
Each year more than 240 corporations and law firms and nearly 1,600 individual attorneys in the tri-state area respond to Pro Bono Partnership’s call to service. This year, one law firm and one attorney from each state were honored. The individual recipient this year is Nichole Berklas, a partner at Bocarsly Emden Cowan Esmail & Arndt LLP.
“The business model of Pro Bono Partnership allows the nonprofit organizations that serve our communities to focus on their clients, not their legal matters,” Pullman & Comley Chair Lee Hoffman said during the awards ceremony. “That way, those organizations can do what they do best, serving their communities and serving their clients. Pro Bono Partnership figured this out 27-some-odd years ago, and in the process has touched probably millions of lives throughout the service territory of the Partnership. It’s truly an amazing organization and we’re gratified to be a small part of that.”
Pro Bono Partnership describes those honored as Volunteers of the Year as “displaying a dedication that rises well above the ordinary, distinguished by the complexity or transformative nature of a pro bono project, the extraordinary responsiveness of a volunteer or volunteers or the sheer volume of matters or time committed to pro bono service through the Partnership.”
Pullman & Comley also has been active with pro bono work through the Connecticut Bar Foundation for decades and is the longest-serving law firm member of the CBA’s Pro Bono Committee. In 2008, Pullman founded the CBA’s pro bono emeritus project to facilitate free legal service by retired attorneys and, since 2016, has been a member of the Pro Bono Institute, which challenges the nation’s most successful law firms to dedicate 3% of their annual billable hours to pro bono work.
Since its founding in 1997, the Pro Bono Partnership has assisted over 4,000 nonprofits in the tristate on more than 21,000 legal matters. Pullman & Comley is one of Connecticut’s largest law firms and, for more than 100 years, has provided a wide range of legal services to clients in the New England region, as well as throughout the United States and internationally.