A growing number of young lawyers today say they want to use their law degrees to take on the world's challenges, which seem to grow knottier every day. According to the Stanford Social Innovation Review, the "Millennial generation wants to create social impact with their skills and talent, and not just with their checkbooks or by spending a day in the soup kitchen." The Pro Bono Institute likewise notes that many lawyers say they want to make a difference in the lives of others and the fate of the planet and "demand a sense of purpose" in their work.

At the same time, recent graduates can face some seriously scary debts, which often take years or even decades to pay off. Law School Transparency, a non-profit organization, found that 75% of 2018 law school graduates took students loans. These students on average borrowed about $115,000 to pay for law school. This amount may be on top of additional debt from their undergraduate studies, as the Pew Research Center reports that the percentage of young adult households with any student debt has doubled in the last 20 years. New lawyers going straight into public service can participate in law school loan-forgiveness programs, but even those require up to a 10-year commitment of work at a legal service provider or NGO. Once there, lawyers do incredibly important and rewarding work but just like lawyers in corporate practice can face long hours, frustration and burnout.

Navigating between "doing well" and "doing good" has traditionally required picking either a corporate or a public service path. There is still no magic bullet, but because of how big firms have evolved, there is a counter-intuitive and increasingly attractive option. These days there are great opportunities to do enormously powerful public interest work in large private firms—with the firms actively seeking the work, encouraging it and supporting it financially.

Today's big law firms are doing pro bono work on a scale and of a quality never before seen. Some can comfortably do 100,000 pro bono hours or more in a year and take on staggeringly large and complicated rights cases, devoting to them the same kinds of resources and supervision that large corporate matters get. The firms are of course comfortable with such complex cases, because they routinely handle them for commercial clients. Big firms have in place the infrastructure, multi-office platform, shared knowledge base, and cutting-edge litigation and research tools to handle the most challenging cases, all of which can be brought to bear on big pro bono matters.

Most firms significantly credit pro bono hours towards associates' bonuses and some firms allow unlimited pro bono to count for bonus purposes. The message is that pro bono work is valued and encouraged—as long as it is balanced appropriately with the need to ensure that corporate clients remain the top priority. This can lead to a heavy workload but can also offer unmatched professional development early in one's career.

Something else has changed in the world of big law: Pro bono is increasingly viewed as an important way to build vital skills that get lawyers noticed, and doing serious pro bono work can be an additional positive factor on the long road to partnership. Playing a leading role on big pro bono matters can help associates develop—at an accelerated pace—the project management savvy, the comfort and confidence interacting with clients, and the management perspective that firms and clients value. A strong pro bono practice can also be a way to demonstrate the future leadership potential and firm stewardship qualities of a partner candidate.

And even if associates don't make partner, or decide they don't want to, the experience of mixing big firm corporate and pro bono work makes them highly attractive candidates for non-profit and government service work. Countless big-firm lawyers make the transition each year to the public sector and thrive there.

The broad range of pro bono matters offered at big firms today shows that they too can present a viable option for publicly minded young attorneys. Big firms are doing truly cutting-edge work on the important issues of the day, in areas such as immigration, LGBTQI rights, genocide and mass-atrocity prevention, environmental conservation and climate change, death penalty challenges, prison reform, fair sentencing, election protection, social-impact investing, and educational equality. In handling these matters, big firm lawyers acting pro bono use all the tools of the trade, including class action lawsuits, appellate test cases and creative litigation strategies. On the corporate side, they also deploy their regulatory or commercial skills, for example, in devising new ways to meet sustainability goals through highly innovative cross-border financing mechanisms, or helping navigate complex technical requirements.

The opportunity to work on—or perhaps play a significant leadership role in—a major public interest case is real and compelling. No, private law firms are not public interest shops. Their lawyers work demanding hours on commercial matters that must take priority, and are well compensated for it. But in parallel, associates also enjoy access to very sophisticated pro bono matters, if they want to take them and are willing to devote the time.

The incredibly talented and dedicated subject matter experts at non-profits and legal services providers are on the front lines of helping those in need with their legal troubles. Big firms cannot run their pro bono practices without the guidance and referrals of these groups. Indeed, absent the strong collaboration that has developed between firms and the non-profit sector, the pro bono field would not be what it is today. At the same time, as firms institutionalize and expand the practice of pro bono—taking on ever bigger rights cases, complex environmental transactions or global research projects to assist international NGOs in their work—they are pushing public interest beyond traditional boundaries to help right some of society's most pressing injustices.

Louis O'Neill is counsel and director of pro bono at White & Case. He began his legal career as an associate at the firm. He subsequently worked as a prosecutor in Manhattan, a White House Fellow and as OSCE Ambassador and Head of Mission to Moldova before returning to the firm.