William Silverman, partner responsible for leading Proskauer’s global pro bono efforts, shared his insight with The American Lawyer in an article focused on law firms’ Election Protection efforts and the need to ramp-up volunteer hours due to new election rules and the pandemic.

Bill explained the number of Proskauer volunteers has risen from a little more than 100 four years ago to more than 400 this year. The 2,000 more hours Proskauer expects to commit to this election cycle will also likely be four times more than the 2016 volunteer hours.

Reflecting on the additional complexity in this voting cycle, Bill said, “Based on our experience in the primary, confusion is still the number one issue that we run into. Not knowing where to vote, or not knowing the rules around voter ID. And that was true before COVID. But COVID adds an additional layer of confusion to it.”

The Election Protection program, run by the nonprofit Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, is supported by more than 150 law firms, including Proskauer, and is now leaning on roughly 23,000 volunteers in 2020.

Read the full article here.