Gibson Dunn Announces Annual Pro Bono Award Winners
Firm News | February 5, 2025
Gibson Dunn’s Pro Bono Committee is thrilled to announce the winners of the 2024 Frank Wheat Memorial Awards. By harnessing their impressive legal skills, our winners were able to change their clients’ lives and make a positive impact on our global community. The stories of their accomplishments reflect the best of Gibson Dunn.
This year’s Frank Wheat Award winners showcase different aspects of the Firm’s diverse and vibrant pro bono practice, including work on behalf of immigrants, criminal justice reform, defense of survivors of domestic violence, and our newly-launched Justice for Women and Girls initiative. In 2024, more than 2,000 Gibson Dunn attorneys around the world have devoted more than 206,000 hours to pro bono work. In total, these matters were valued at approximately $251 million.
We are especially honored to include amongst this year’s honorees Scott Edelman as the recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award. Scott recently retired from Gibson Dunn after decades as a Partner at the Firm. Scott served as the inaugural chair of Gibson Dunn’s Pro Bono Committee, a role he held from 2005 to 2021. Scott’s dedication to and stewardship of our pro bono practice led it to grow by leaps and bounds and become the pillar that it is today.
Frank Wheat was a former Los Angeles partner, a superb transactional lawyer, SEC commissioner, and president of the Los Angeles County Bar. He was also a giant in the nonprofit community, having founded the Alliance for Children’s Rights in addition to serving as a leader of the Sierra Club and as a founding director of the Center for Law in the Public Interest. He exemplified the commitment to the community and to pro bono service that has always been a core tenet of the Gibson Dunn culture. Recipients of the Frank Wheat Memorial Award each receive a $2,500 prize to be donated to pro bono organizations designated by the recipients.