Proskauer Creates Full-Time Pro Bono Partner Position

Proskauer Rose has tapped William Silverman to head the firm’s pro bono efforts. Silverman, 48, who is leaving Greenberg Traurig, will be the first partner-level lawyer to lead Proskauer’s pro bono practice on a full-time basis.

Michael Cardozo, the Proskauer partner who spearheaded the search committee, said Silverman, a former Southern District assistant U.S. attorney who oversaw Greenberg’s pro bono program, has the experience and stature to attract public interest groups to refer matters to Proskauer and attract attorneys to cases.

Cardozo said Proskauer wants to increase its volume of “big ticket” pro bono matters, such as death row cases, gay rights and Innocence Project matters, and boost the volume of cases assisting the poor. “We want to be at the forefront of those matters,” he said.

Stacey Fahey, counsel at Proskauer who oversaw Proskauer’s pro bono program, left the firm earlier this year.

Silverman left the U.S. Attorney’s Office in 2002 and joined Greenberg, where he became a shareholder in 2005. He has served as counsel to the New York State Anti-Trafficking Coalition and helped form a program in which volunteer law firms counsel unrepresented litigants in New York City Family Court.

He also has advocated for raising the age of criminal responsibility in New York for nonviolent crimes and for representation of unaccompanied minors in immigration proceedings.

Silverman said he ran the pro bono program at Greenberg in addition to his litigation practice. “What I realized was that I needed to focus on one or the other,” he said, adding the position at Proskauer is “a way for me to take my commitment to pro bono to the next level.”

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