Akin’s 2025 Pro Bono Awards Honors the Remarkable Contributions of Lawyers and Staff

On July 16, Akin held its annual Bruce McLean Pro Bono Awards, hosted every summer to honor the excellent pro bono efforts by the firm’s lawyers and business services professionals. This year, the ceremony was renamed to honor Akin’s former chairman Bruce McLean, who passed away in 2024. Bruce’s leadership and support during his tenure as chairman established the firm’s pro bono practice as we know it today.   

Firm co-chair Abid Qureshi hosted the firmwide ceremony, which was followed by separate office-level ceremonies at select Akin offices. 

Here are the individuals, teams and matters recognized at this year’s ceremony:  

Pro Bono & Public Service Hall of Fame – Kim Koopersmith. Kim joins other transformative Akin leaders, including Bob Strauss, Alan Feld, Vernon Jordan and Bruce McLean in this honor. During Kim’s tenure as chair of the firm, Akin dedicated more than 1 million pro bono hours. She greenlit Akin’s involvement in some of its most impactful matters—holding the French national railroad accountable to Holocaust survivors, shaping the human rights canon in our successful case against the former president and defense minister of Bolivia and representing hundreds of Central American women and children detained at the Karnes Family Detention Center. Beyond her leadership at Akin, Kim has been, and remains, a leader in the community – she chaired the board of Equal Justice Works, served on the board of HerJustice for many years and currently co-chairs the board of the Legal Defense Fund, at a critical time for the organization. 

Office of the Year – Philadelphia. With each attorney in the office devoting at least 20 hours to pro bono matters, and most far exceeding that mark, Philadelphia made an outsized impact on their community with the office averaging 186 pro bono hours per attorney.  

Practice Group of the Year – Dallas Litigation. The group – including its amazing paralegals and business services professionals – devoted more than 3,000 hours to pro bono clients, including nearly 150 pro bono hours per attorney, helping refugees seeking asylum, working with a local ministry to combat human trafficking and advocating for prisoners. 

Litigation Matter of the Year – An Akin team, led by Parvin Moyne, represented a minor in the criminal prosecution of her abuser, who had lured her and a teenage friend to an apartment and subjected them to days of abuse before being rescued by the FBI. The team provided comprehensive support to the victim throughout the pre-trial discovery process and during preparations to testify in court.  

Counseling Matter of the Year – Mountain Gateway. A team in Washington, D.C. utilized their connections on the Hill, in the White House and with the State Department to secure the freedom of 11 pastors and two lawyers affiliated with the U.S.-based evangelical mission Mountain Gateway. The group had been unlawfully detained for over nine months by the authoritarian Ortega regime in Nicaragua, and the Akin team continues their advocacy to resolve this ongoing issue.   

Associate of the Year – Morgan Hensley. A funds associate in the Washington, D.C. office, Morgan focuses his pro bono work on helping vulnerable individuals around the District. He has led several matters helping DC residents who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless access benefits, fight eviction and find housing.  

Counsel of the Year – Andrew McDonough. A corporate counsel in our New York office, Andrew has shown great leadership in working with asylum seekers throughout his career – he took his first asylum case as an associate, working on behalf of a gay man from Chad. The case was fast-tracked, and the client was granted asylum a year after filing. Andrew was hooked and continued his passionate advocacy for refugees. Most recently, he led a team working to reunite another asylee from Chad with his wife and five children.  

Frank Reddick Partner of the Year – Ashley Vinson Crawford.  A litigation partner and partner-in-charge of Akin’s San Francisco office, Ashley is a steadfast pro bono leader who has fostered a deep commitment to pro bono in the office. She not only zealously advocates for her pro bono clients but also fosters relationships with Bay Area legal services organizations. Currently, Ashley is addressing systemic issues in the pretrial justice system by challenging practices that can have life-threatening consequences for those that encounter it.  

Julia Ghahramani Immigration Advocacy Award – Radu Suciu. A litigation associate in the London office, Radu has been a leader in our partnership with the Afghan Pro-Bono Initiative since he was a trainee, helping to reunite Afghan families. Radu has been a key to success in a number of Afghan reunification matters and continues this important work – for example, an Afghan man was evacuated to the UK when the Taliban took over; Radu fought for him and his family by leading the team, winning an appeal of the Home Office’s refusal of their family reunification application.  

Diane Streat Award – Pat Castro. A legal secretary in the firm’s Houston office, Pat never says “no” when asked to assist with a pro bono matter.  The attorneys in Houston trust her to handle everything from Spanish-to-English interpretation to preparing filings to making logistical arrangements for virtual court hearings. Recently, Pat shined during a stressful home visit by a Department of Homeland Security officer to one of our immigration client families, serving as an interpreter for the meeting.   

The firm was recently ranked #17 in The American Lawyer's Pro Bono Scorecard, which ranks the AmLaw 200 according to the average number of pro bono hours per U.S. lawyer and the percentage of US.-based lawyers who performed more than 20 hours of pro bono work. To learn more about Akin's distinguished pro bono practice, click here.