News

Apr 14, 2022

Lawyers Give Back: We’re supporting the Syrian American Medical Association this month

By Exo Legal,

When war broke out in Ukraine, Anthony Legal donated an entire day’s worth of billable hours to World Central Kitchen, which had mobilized to the area to provide warm meals to hungry, displaced Ukrainians. As part of the post announcing this singular gesture, we also threw out this question: What if every lawyer in America donated a billable hour’s worth every month to a worthy cause?

The answer, of course, is “Wow, that would be fantastic!”

Here’s some quick math: There are 1.3 million lawyers in the U.S., and about half of all law school grads take jobs at law firms. On the conservative side, that could mean about 500,000 lawyers are billing hours at law firms every day. Let’s assume those lawyers are charging an average of $300 an hour. If every hourly-billing lawyer donated their fee for a single hour, that would equal $150 million—every single month.

This month, Anthony Legal donated to the Syrian American Medical Society, which is a relief organization that is working on the front lines in Syria and neighboring countries. The world and the media have seemingly moved on from Syrian, but the UN Refugee Agency has labeled it the world’s largest refugee crisis of our time. It’s true that our donation may be just a drop in the bucket. But it’s also true that a bucket can be filled with many individual drops.

Whether it’s supporting refugees halfway across the globe or the homeless population in your own city, we encourage our fellow hourly- billers: Open your hearts and your wallets to the incredible need that exists all around us.