At Ad Astra, pro bono work is in our DNA.
Pro bono is an adapted Latin phrase meaning “for the public good.”
Years ago, we made a pledge to the Bar Association of San Francisco to support pro bono services — and we’re proud to be living out that promise every day.
Each of our attorneys is encouraged to provide 50 hours of annual pro bono legal services. We advance the interests of those less fortunate as we work on these matters of public interest.
Some examples we’re pretty proud of:
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- Partner Katy Young and former Senior Counsel Herman Hoying, together with Morgan Lewis and the Transgender Law Center, represented a transgender prison inmate in litigation that led to California becoming the first state in the nation to develop a policy regarding treatment of gender dysmorphia.
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- Partner Wendy Hillger has volunteered for the Bar Association of San Francisco’s Justice & Diversity Center, to support tenant housing rights.
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- Partners Katy Young and David Nied are involved with The Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence and Open Door Legal (formerly Bayview / Hunters Point Community Legal Center), Serving one of the most underprivileged areas of San Francisco, Open Door is a universal legal clinic founded by USF law grads which just won a $500,000 grant from the Google Impact Challenge.
- Associate Hannah Stitt volunteers her time as a Mentor and Lead Attorney for the Prisoner Advocacy Network. In those roles she partners with incarcerated individuals living in California’s prison system in order to support the incarceree’s individual efforts to use the administrative grievance process to change the conditions of their confinement. PAN prioritizes the needs of jail-house lawyers, activists and those living in any form of solitary confinement. Since its first class of volunteer legal advocates was trained in the Fall of 2015, PAN has worked on over 100 matters and successfully held the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation accountable.