CAUSES WE ARE PASSIONATE ABOUT
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Ensuring Voter Protection and Accessibility
At Blank Rome , we are committed to ensuring that all eligible voters are able to cast their ballot and have that ballot counted . Our firm played an important role in the fight against voter suppression and ensuring voting accessibility during the 2022 mid-term elections . In 2022 , more than 850 pro bono hours were spent working on voter protection and accessibility initiatives . Attorneys Staff Election Protection Hotlines
On November 7 and 8 , 2022 , our firm partnered with the Lawyers ’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and fellow law firm Troutman Pepper to organize and host a nonpartisan election protection hotline for voters throughout Pennsylvania . Blank Rome and Troutman Pepper recruited more than 125 volunteers from their two firms , in-house legal departments , and other law firms to answer calls from voters with questions or concerns about voting . The hotline answered hundreds of calls and fielded diverse questions from voters on topics such as the mail-in ballot process and problems at polling places . Our firm had volunteers participate from almost every office . As just one example of the impact of this effort , in the early afternoon of Election Day , Blank Rome attorney Julia Riskowitz received a call from someone at a Veterans Administration (“ VA ”) nursing home in Philadelphia . The caller reported that some residents had applied for , but never received , their mail-in ballots . Julia researched the issue and escalated it to the hotline command center , which dispatched volunteers to the VA facility to assist the veterans with filling out designated agent forms . The volunteers took the completed forms to City Hall , obtained replacement ballots , and returned the ballots to the veterans . After the veterans completed their ballots , the volunteers delivered the ballots to City Hall and their votes were counted .
In addition to our extensive participation in the Pennsylvania hotline , attorney Katherine Franco in our Houston office served as a substantive expert in Texas election law in support of the Lawyers ’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law ’ s nonpartisan hotline for Texas voters . Katherine ’ s participation was critical in allowing the hotline to answer questions from voters throughout the State . As a result of Katherine ’ s excellent work on the Texas hotline , she was asked to co-chair the Voting Rights Working Group of the Law Firm Antiracism Alliance . Through this work , Katherine will lead efforts to identify and remove systemic racial barriers and inequities that impact voting rights .
12 • PRO BONO REPORT & COMMUNITY IMPACT REPORT