Beveridge & Diamond’s pro bono sustainability work features prominently in the 2019 Annual Report recently published by Lawyers for a Sustainable Economy (LSE), an initiative that facilitates legal support for sustainability-focused entrepreneurs and non-profits. LSE’s 2019 Annual Report highlights the pro bono work contributed by participating firms during the first year of the initiative. B&D joined LSE in February 2019, pledging to provide $500,000 worth of pro bono legal services by the end of 2020 in support of environmental sustainability.

Of the 25 projects outlined in the Annual Report, five showcase pro bono efforts from B&D attorneys. In particular, the Annual Report highlights the work that Principals Evynn Overton and Pam Marks are doing for the Chesapeake Conservancy, an organization dedicated to a wide variety of conservation-related initiatives centered on the Chesapeake Bay, including land conservation, public access to the Bay, regional initiatives to reduce pollution, among many others. B&D advises the Maryland-based non-profit on issues involving governance, due diligence, and most recently on a complex set of agreements fueled by donor funding under which Anne Arundel County acquired more than 19 acres of waterfront property for the expansion of a local park and conservation, and which provide the Chesapeake Conservancy the right to create a Conservation Campus at the property. 

The report also features the firm’s work on behalf of the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, which is working to promote the sustainable management of the Atlantic menhaden fishery; the C&O Canal Trust, the official non-profit partner program of the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal National Historic Park; the Food Recovery Network, an organization that recovers and donates perishable food that would otherwise go to waste; and Coastal Foodshed, whose mission is to strengthen the local food economy by making it easier for growers to sell local foods.

For more information, view the LSE Annual Report here.