(L to R) Skadden's "Know Your Rights" team: Ken King, Kelsey Merrick, Roshni Kumar, Amy Park, Stacy Kray, Katy Cummings, Monica Schreiber and Amr Razzak. Not pictured include Patrick Hammon, Ken Kumayama and Colleen Lee.

Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom's "Know Your Rights and Know the Law: Sex, Bullying and Social Media" program has been offered to thousands of students in the Bay Area to teach them their legal rights and responsibilities in the realm of social media and technology. The firm, which is being recognized for its Innovations in Pro Bono for the efforts as part of The Recorder's California Leaders in Tech Law and Innovation Awards, has partnered with Applied Materials, PayPal, Hewlett Packard and others in the effort. Skadden counsel Stacy Kray recently discussed how the program came about and the firm's plans for expanding it.

The Recorder: How did this pro bono project come about?

Stacy Kray: Following a focused inquiry into how Skadden attorneys could best make a positive impact in the Silicon Valley community, a group of attorneys and support staff created "Know Your Rights and Know the Law: Sex, Bullying and Social Media" almost six years ago in response to what has been widely called a public health crisis: teens engaging in negative, sometimes illegal, behavior while using social media. From "sexting" to the live streaming of sexual assault, headlines around the country continue to speak to the urgency of these often legally complex cases.

In the most tragic situations, young people have taken their own lives upon learning private photos have been disseminated. In fact, the tragic death of Audrie Pott, a 15-year-old Saratoga high schooler who committed suicide in 2012 after photos of her assault at a party were allegedly publicized to her classmates, was a driving impetus behind the creation of the program—the desire on the part of Skadden to make something positive come out of such a sad situation.

How much work have the firm and its partners put in on the project so far?

Since the program's inception, our attorneys have logged more than 5,000 hours of pro bono time in connection with this program. Members of our staff also devote significant time to running this project. Most notably, our in-house counsel partners, including attorneys from PayPal, Applied Materials, HP and many other Silicon Valley companies, also have together given many hundreds of hours to this program.

What's your proudest accomplishment of this pro bono representation to this point?

While there are other school-based programs focusing on cyber-bullying, social media use and related topics, this is one of the few—and we believe the first—that focuses on students' legal rights and responsibilities in the realm of social media use. This crisis has an especially compelling angle here in Silicon Valley, where local teens live in the world's epicenter of technology, but many never receive any formal training regarding laws regulating the use of that technology.

Accordingly, we are especially proud of the breadth and longevity of the program—we have reached more than 13,800 high school students with our interactive presentations. We routinely hear back from the students that they gleaned valuable information they previously were not aware of. For example, they come away with a firm grasp of important legal concepts as consent and accomplice liability. This program is not about peppering students with information about what they shouldn't do; rather, it is about empowering them to make smart decisions in their own lives and to be advocates for their peers. The feedback we get from the students—that little light we see go on in their eyes during the classroom presentation—that's what we are most proud of.

What are your goals for the project going forward?

To broaden our army of amazing teachers and find ways to make our message resonate even more loudly with teens in need.