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At Massey & Gail, we feel strongly about our communities and believe we have a duty to give back and to support those who are financially unable to access counsel for their legal needs.
To that end, our lawyers frequently take on community-impacting pro bono projects, represent indigent litigants in civil rights lawsuits, and serve as directors on boards of community-based non-profits. For example, because of the deep background of many of our attorneys in competitive debate, our firm is a longtime sponsor of a nationwide charity that promotes competitive academic debate in inner-city and financially underserved schools. This charity not only improves educational outcomes for students, but also helps diversify the legal profession, because many successful debaters enter law school after college.
In addition, we have an active pro bono practice that has included representing criminal defendants in Chicago and the Fifth Circuit, homeless veterans in Los Angeles, prison inmates in Alabama and Illinois, a low-income high school in Chicago, and educational and art non-profits. Members of the firm are frequent pro bono volunteers, as well as instructors at Harvard Law School, the University of Maryland, the D.C. Bar Association, and other institutions. Our partners serve on charity boards including Planned Parenthood of Illinois, the National Advisory Council of the School of Communication at Northwestern University, Chicago Run, the Chicago chapter of the American Constitution Society, and boards for a public school district and a private school.
At Massey & Gail, our fee structures span the full spectrum of financial possibilities, from pure hourly arrangements to matters in which our fees are completely contingent. Hourly structures are often the most appropriate, and we think that clients receive an exceptional value proposition given how we efficiently staff and manage our matters. But we also know that non-hourly structures can be sensible for the right type of case. Unlike some firms that dabble on the margins with such arrangements, we have considerable experience with non-hourly arrangements. As a result, we also understand how to gauge and bear the risks associated with them.
We want to succeed in each case that we handle, so we custom-tailor our engagements after carefully evaluating the nature, magnitude, and risks of each individual matter. Many clients seek to manage their litigation budgets with greater certainty. Our flexible approach allows us to offer predictability that hourly billing cannot provide. Please reach out to discuss the varied, creative arrangements we are willing to consider.
Diversity and inclusion are core values at Massey & Gail because we recognize it as a source of our strength. During the past three years, three-quarters of our full-time attorney hires have been diverse. We believe that developing and maintaining diverse talent is fundamental to our success as a law firm. It allows our professionals to achieve their full potential and is essential to delivering high-quality legal services to our clients.
We take active steps to achieve our diversity and inclusion goals. This extends to attorney recruiting, professional development, and promotion. We actively recruit female, minority, and LGBTQ lawyers, through both search firms and our attorneys’ professional networks. We are a member of the Minority Corporate Counsel Association, an organization committed to advancing the hiring, retention, and promotion of diverse lawyers in law departments and law firms through pipeline initiatives, and by providing research, best practices, professional development, and training. Additionally, one of our partners was a 2016 Fellow of the Leadership Council on Legal Diversity and is still involved in mentorship and advocacy at the organization.
