Pro Bono Program

Partnering with Pro Bono Lawyers Across the Globe to Advance Reproductive Rights

As the only global legal advocacy organization dedicated exclusively to advancing and defending reproductive rights as human rights, the Center for Reproductive Rights works with a network of over 2,600 pro bono attorneys across more than 88 countries. Our Pro Bono Program, overseen by a professional pro bono staff, engages firm attorneys in the Center’s groundbreaking work on maternal health, assisted reproduction, access to contraception, and safe and legal abortion. Together, Center and firm attorneys advocate in courts, human rights forums, and legislative bodies to secure reproductive autonomy for women around the world.

The Center works tirelessly across five continents to build, defend, and enforce reproductive rights, pioneering legal theories, developing jurisprudence, and strengthening legal protections to advance our mission. Our global program staff, experts in constitutional and international human rights law, have brought groundbreaking cases before national courts, United Nations committees, and regional human rights bodies that have expanded access to reproductive healthcare, including sexual and reproductive health information, safe legal abortion, maternal care free from obstetric violence, and assisted reproduction.

United States. We bring strategic impact litigation that focuses on ensuring access to reproductive healthcare in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to abandon the constitutional guarantee to safe legal abortion. We also engage in legislative and administrative advocacy through various strategies, such as providing legal analysis of legislation, and commenting on proposed regulations to policy makers in Congress, the Administration and state legislatures. This critical work is supplemented by pro bono counsel who partner with our U.S. staff in many ways including:

• Co-counseling on impact litigation before state and federal courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court and state courts of last resort

• Drafting amicus briefs at various judicial levels, including the Supreme Court and appellate courts

• Conducting legal research and analysis on a broad range of reproductive rights issue to support litigation and public policy advocacy

• Serving as thought partners and experts for legal areas outside the Center’s expertise

• Providing transactional legal services to Center partners and clients

Latin America and the Caribbean. We build sexual and reproductive human rights norms related to maternal care, sexual and reproductive health education, forced sterilization, and safe, legal abortion. Our Bogotá office, in partnership with the Causa Justa movement, played a critical role in Colombia’s decriminalization of abortion and litigates cases before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the UN on behalf of Indigenous and marginalized women and girls.  Pro Bono partners enhance this work by:

• Co-counseling and supporting innovative litigation before international human rights bodies

• Drafting amicus briefs for the Center and its partners in support of human rights litigation

• Conducting comparative research to support advocacy efforts, litigation strategy, publications, and to provide foundational knowledge for the region’s work

Africa. We secure impactful court decisions to build and strengthen legal protections for sexual and reproductive health and rights across the continent. Our Nairobi hub has secured landmark victories on behalf of Kenyan women and girls, affirming the right to abortion under the Kenyan constitution, and on behalf of Tanzanian girls through a landmark ruling that ended the country’s longstanding practice of forcing girls in public schools to undergo pregnancy testing and subsequent expulsion if pregnant. Pro bono lawyers support our work in the region through:

• Serving as thought partners on advocacy and other law reform strategies

• Drafting submissions to the United Nation

• Providing foundational research and supporting litigation development and strategy

• Developing cross-regional judicial training curricula on reproductive rights

Europe. From our office in Geneva, but with additional staff in Belgium, Spain, and Germany, we serve as legal and policy leaders in the region, supporting national and regional litigation and advocacy, and respond to emerging threats and political developments. Our European team works with pro bono counsel to:

• Publish comprehensive reports on sexual and reproductive rights inequities among European Union member states and the United Kingdom

• Provide amicus counsel at national and regional judicial bodies

• Be a thought partner on EU strategy

Asia.  Our attorneys are based in Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and the Philippines, collaborating with partners to strengthen legal rights to safe abortion and post-abortion care, contraception, maternal health services, and to create human rights norms for surrogates. In Asia, we partner with pro bono firms to:

• Research laws and policies to strengthen the Center’s ability to support to regional partners

• Provide technical support to Center advocacy efforts before United Nations Treaty Monitoring bodies

• Train Center staff and partners on legal issues impacting the Center’s work, such as data privacy and digital security

The Center also relies on the expertise of its law firm network for a variety of its own corporate, business, and regulatory legal needs, including:

• Corporate governance advice

• Guidance on labor and employment issues for the Center’s 200+ staff across the globe

• Counsel on lobbying and electioneering issues

• Intellectual property advice in connection with the Center’s external communications and trademarks

• Providing counsel with respect to data privacy and cybersecurity

Learn More

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To learn more about how the Center partners with pro bono lawyers across the globe in both its programmatic and organizational work, please click here.

To read the document in Spanish/en español, please click here.

The Center for Reproductive Rights invites law firms and corporate counsel to join us in advancing reproductive rights. For more information please contact the Pro Bono team at [email protected].