Your new year’s resolutions may no longer be intact, but hopefully your will to improve your life and those around you is. To kick off the first public service column of 2024, Natalie Posgate looks back on the 10 most important pro bono and diversity stories of 2023. So slice a piece of that cake that 2024 you said you would avoid and settle in.

In the last edition of P.S. for 2023, the Dallas Volunteer Attorney Program announces January dates for pro bono legal clinics, Witherite Law Group donates tens of thousands to support families and seniors in need during the holidays, the VA rolls out a new program supporting homeless veterans (or those facing homelessness) and the Dallas Hispanic Bar Association announces its 2024 president and other new leadership.

This month, Haynes Boone’s Dallas office launched a new community project that works with educational nonprofit United to Learn to support an underserved elementary school in the firm’s backyard. Beyond bolstering student achievement and helping to erase systemic inequities, the new partnership provides the opportunity to diversify the legal industry pipeline by reaching kids at an earlier age at a school that feeds into a high school Haynes Boone has a longstanding relationship with.

This week’s edition of P.S. features a new graduate program at St. Mary’s School of Law for special education advocacy, a holiday toy gift drive by Gray Reed, a Target shopping spree sponsored by Witherite Law Firm that benefits a local nonprofit bridging the gap between teens and law enforcement and an event honoring the major donors of the Dallas Volunteer Attorney Program’s Equal Access to Justice Campaign.

This week’s edition of P.S. features the opening of an art exhibition at a Houston law firm that celebrates diversity, a movie screening hosted for neglected and abused children, a gift drive benefiting foster care children, a top scorer of LGBTQ+-focused Corporate Equality Index, and the honorees of Legal Aid of NorthWest Texas’ recent Builders of Justice Awards.

This week’s edition of P.S. features a Toyota lawyer’s recognition for her commitment to justice and to helping the underrepresented, a Texas Appleseed pilot program that works to help domestic violence victims break free from coerced debt brought by their abusers, December dates for Dallas Volunteer Attorney Program’s pro bono legal clinics, and a winter coat donation occurring this weekend for low-income students in the Fort Worth Independent School District sponsored by a major Dallas personal injury firm.

It was the actions of a series of men in the 1970s and 1980s that derailed the rest of Rachel Faili’s life, even almost ending it. It was the decision by a group of Sidley Austin lawyers to take action and represent this Houston veteran pro bono that helped her move forward from decades of the severe post traumatic stress disorder that has haunted her since her military service.

This is the story of both events, the bridge between them and how a lawyer’s skills can be used to truly make a difference in the lives of those who suffer.

A short and sweet P.S. this week highlights two Thanksgiving-themed public service efforts led by Winston & Strawn, a name partner at Lynn Pinker Hurst & Schwegmann and the Dallas Volunteer Attorney Program. Plus: a movie recommendation.

This edition of P.S. features a new bank that joined a program that finances civil legal services in Texas through IOLTA accounts, a firm that recently became Mansfield 6.0 certified, recent awards received by Texas law students and law schools and law school staff and faculty for their dedication to pro bono, two lifetime achievement awards, a Texas firm’s recognition for its veteran pro bono work and an ABOTA civil and ethics-oriented award given to a special prosecutor in the Ken Paxton impeachment trial.

This edition of P.S. features an award received by an Aldous Walker attorney, an upcoming international rule of law-focused CLE hosted by Dallas nonprofit ACT and a Veterans Day gala tonight in Houston co-chaired by the top lawyers at CenterPoint and ConocoPhillips. Plus: a feature of Haynes Boone associate Alex Clark, an Air Force intelligence analyst turned lawyer who helped organize a special swearing-in at the state capitol this week for newly minted lawyer-veterans, discusses how his personal experiences motivate him to continue serving veterans.