Microsoft’s Top Lawyer Recruits Celebrities and Colleagues to Start Charity - The Chronicle of Philanthropy
Kids in Need of Defense provides free legal assistance to immigrant children in courtrooms across the country. Its roots are in an unexpected place: the Microsoft Corporation.
Brad Smith (left), Microsoft’s general counsel, got the idea for the nonprofit after learning that many children who are caught up in immigration proceedings—about 4,000—never receive the help of a lawyer.
Mr. Smith recruited law firms, corporate legal departments, and the actress and refugee advocate Angelina Jolie to help form a nonprofit devoted to ensuring that any child who is separated from his or her parents and then faces immigration proceedings can get access to a lawyer.
Microsoft, which since 2002 had focused its pro bono legal efforts on helping immigrant children in Washington State, where its headquarters are located, contributes $1-million a year in cash to the charity, which was founded in 2008.
Today, the group, known as KIND, operates in eight cities. It has trained roughly 3,250 lawyers and assisted more than 3,000 children. Mr. Smith says the group hasn’t met the goal of providing legal help to all unaccompanied children, but it’s closed the gap by about half.