As Trump administration policies target areas such as immigration, LGBTQ issues and voting rights, the demand for pro bono services among vulnerable organizations and individuals is spiking. But some of the country’s largest law firms, fearing retaliation, are distancing themselves from this work.
With an ecosystem largely comprised of small to midsize practices, Rhode Island law firms haven’t experienced direct attacks, but they face their own obstacles in providing pro bono representation.
In the absence of national prominence and power, smaller firms also lack the staffing and resources that enable large practices to provide pro bono services, says Suzanne Harrington-Steppen, a professor and associate director of pro bono programs at the Roger Williams University School of Law.
“It’s much harder for attorneys in the midsized firms in Rhode Island to do pro bono post-pandemic because they’re just trying to keep their regular clients coming in. ... The law firms are leaner, and we have a lot of smaller and solo practitioners,” she said.
Still, more Ocean State lawyers are attempting to rise to the challenge in light of Trump policies, Harrington-Steppen says. But in some areas, firms and individual attorneys lack needed specialization.
Prior to Trump taking office in January, pro bono legal work in the U.S. had already decreased year over year, according to a survey conducted by Washington, D.C., nonprofit the Pro Bono Institute, with 49% of respondents reporting that they had participated in pro bono services in 2024, down from 53% in 2023.
Since January, this outlook has only become drearier as large law firms have backed away from pro bono work that serves causes targeted by the Trump administration, or litigation at odds with its policies.
Meanwhile, the country’s largest provider of legal aid funding for low-income Americans, the nonprofit Legal Services Corp., faces the complete loss of federal funding in Trump’s 2026 budget.
Just 10 states track data on annual hours of pro bono work by law practices, and Rhode Island isn’t one of them. But Harrington-Steppen says Ocean State attorneys seem to be responding to the need, or at least trying.
In May, a group of two dozen attorneys announced their formation of the Lawyers’ Committee for Rhode Island, a group established in response to the Trump administration’s attacks on pro bono law services and vulnerable populations.
At its launch, LCRI put out a call for volunteer lawyers across all areas who the organization will train and support as individual issues arise.
Miriam Weizenbaum, an attorney with Deluca Weizenbaum, Barry & Revens Ltd., and Amy Romero, former assistant U.S. attorney in Rhode Island, lead the organization in full-time roles.
While many Rhode Island law firms and individual attorneys can assist in business-related matters such as nonprofit litigation, the state has a shortage of attorneys experienced in immigration law, housing and family law, Harrington-Steppen says.
Immigration work requires specialized knowledge, she says, and it takes a while for attorneys to get up to speed.
This circumstance is apparent at Hinckley, Allen & Snyder LLP, a Boston-based business law firm with an office in Providence.
With more than 170 lawyers on staff across the firm’s eight offices, Hinckley Allen takes on about 50 pro bono matters per year, says Mitchell R. Edwards, a partner in the firm’s Rhode Island office and chair of the practice’s Pro Bono Committee.
This frequency has generally improved over time, Edwards says, and the firm is currently on track to surpass expectations this year, with about 44 cases already taken in 2025.
Across this work, Hinckley Allen has provided representation for individuals and organizations such as low-income tenants fighting eviction, incarcerated individuals with civil rights claims, nonprofits seeking 501(c)(3) status, veterans, and people with disabilities who face housing discrimination.
But when it comes to immigration, overall, “that’s just not an area we have a specialty in on the litigation side, where that tends to come up more in the pro bono context,” Edwards said. And with the specialized nature of immigration law, “you really need to know that area if you’re going to be doing that.”
Steven Brown, executive director of American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island Inc., says Trump policies have had a chilling effect on attorneys’ willingness to participate in pro bono work nationwide. The organization has also spoken with attorneys who “have specifically offered to provide their services to help us to handle cases precisely because of the changes that they see, and these actions coming from the Trump administration,” Brown said.
The ACLU of Rhode Island has so far filed five lawsuits related to Trump administration actions, with “undoubtedly, many more to come,” Brown said. These efforts have required collaboration with volunteer attorneys in Rhode Island and throughout the country.
“There has been a lot of collaboration to try to handle the enormously challenging actions that have come out of the Trump administration so far,” Brown said. “These are not simple cases. Any time you’re fighting the U.S. government and all the resources at its disposal, it’s not easy, and it does require a lot of people power to bring these lawsuits.”
