Mission Statement:

To employ journalists who research, report and write articles about pro bono, public service and diversity within the legal profession for The Texas Lawbook and its partner publications, such as The Dallas Morning News. The goal is simple: To showcase the successes of law firms, corporate legal departments and individual lawyers on matters related to pro bono, public service and diversity in order to celebrate successes, shine a light on challenges and failures, and hopefully provide substantive insight on paths firms and legal departments can take to achieve successes.

Background:

The Texas Lawbook is an online newspaper that focuses on business lawyers and business law in Texas and that has more than 16,000 paid subscribers. The Lawbook has partnerships with the Association of Corporate Counsel Chapters in Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, and San Antonio. And The Dallas Morning News also regularly publishes Texas Lawbook articles, which greatly expands the Lawbook’s audience. 

As part of The Lawbook’s 10th anniversary celebration in 2021 and 2022, Lawbook owners decided to create a full-time writer position that focuses solely on pro bono, public service and diversity in the legal profession. 

To achieve this, Texas Lawbook leaders, with the assistance of the Association of Corporate Counsel Chapters in Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston, created the Texas Lawbook Foundation. The Internal Revenue Service has approved the Texas Lawbook Foundation as a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organization.

Purpose:

The Texas Lawbook Foundation has two functions: (1) Generate revenue/funds to compensate the journalists doing the work of identifying, researching, writing and publishing articles and content on pro bono, public service and diversity; and (2) Help promote articles and other content about pro bono, public service and diversity generated by the Foundation journalists.

Lawbook Foundation Articles:

The Texas Lawbook will publish all articles written by the pro bono, public service and diversity journalists outside the newspaper’s paywall, which allows the content to be accessible to everyone. In addition, The Lawbook is donating all revenues generated from corporate in-house legal department subscriptions to the Lawbook Foundation for the first year and will consider expanding this option for future years. The Lawbook staff is providing editing, web support, business services and other support to the Foundation and its pro bono and diversity journalists for free.