Reproductive rights have come under threat around the world in recent years. In June 2022 a US Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization overturned Roe v. Wade and eliminated the US federal constitutional right to abortion. We have a long history of pro bono work on reproductive rights issues, and in 2022 we took on new projects in multiple jurisdictions. 

Responding to the Dobbs decision

After Dobbs, there was a groundswell of concern across the Firm and a real desire to get involved. To effectively mobilize our efforts in a rapidly changing legal environment, our Global Women's Initiative established a strategy working group and began organizing volunteers. This action allowed the Firm to quickly respond to incoming requests for pro bono legal support. 

"Immediately after the Dobbs decision, our people started asking us ‘What can we do?' People from across our network were extremely upset and needed a way to channel that," says Shanghai partner and Global Women's Initiative Chair Vivian Tsoi. "Pro bono was the core of our response."

One of the first requests came from existing pro bono client Lawyers for Good Government (L4GG). We volunteered to help L4GG build a first-of-its-kind database tracking laws—and the rapid legislative changes—related to reproductive healthcare in all 50 US states. Collaborating with other law firms, we conducted research on the reproductive rights landscape in six states. 

Our team of 34 lawyers and legal staff from eight of our offices in the US and Europe continue to track updates to these states' laws in real time. L4GG's online, open-source database will be a valuable shared resource for lawyers, reproductive rights organizations, policy makers, healthcare providers, nonprofits and the general public, working to support reproductive rights in the US. 

White & Case lawyers across the US are also assisting the National Women's Law Center, a US nonprofit advancing gender justice, with further specific state-by-state research to support its overall reproductive rights work. 

Collaborating with Center for Reproductive Rights

On behalf of the Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR), lawyers in our Warsaw office took on a project to consider the issue of reproductive and digital rights, a growing area of law. This project is the latest in our more than 15-year pro bono relationship with CRR. We are also contributing to United Nations–focused global research on intersectional discrimination and the right to reproductive and sexual health. We previously created a reproductive rights curriculum for judges globally and helped CRR to update its World Abortion Laws Map, among many other projects.

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