Remembering Pro Bono Champion Mark Herzog

November 16, 2021

The D.C. Bar Pro Bono Center mourns the passing of former staff leader and fierce access to justice advocate Mark Herzog, who died November 13, 2021, after a year-long illness. Through his work at the Pro Bono Center and across the entire legal services community, Herzog leaves behind a legacy of fighting for people who cannot afford a lawyer.

Starting in 1994, Herzog worked at the Pro Bono Center for nearly two decades, mainly in the role of associate director. Alongside former executive director Maureen Thornton Syracuse, Herzog was instrumental in building the Pro Bono Center into the largest provider of pro bono legal services in the District of Columbia, which annually helps 20,000 low-income residents.

Herzog was widely respected for his incredible work ethic, legal expertise, strategic vision, and ability to get things done. He was a driving force behind numerous D.C. Bar task forces and committees whose work led to improvements in access to justice and administration of justice for people experiencing poverty.

From growing law firm participation in the Pro Bono Center’s Advocacy & Justice Clinic to working with volunteers to launch the Saturday Advice & Referral Clinic in Shaw and Anacostia to opening four legal resource centers at D.C. Superior Court, Herzog believed in community and cultivated relationships everywhere to best reach clients. These programs serving tenants, small landlords, consumers, parents, caregivers, families, and others continue to help thousands of city residents improve and stabilize their lives.

Herzog was an early champion of using technology to increase access to legal services and engage pro bono lawyers. Tenacious and patient, he worked with dozens of law firms and providers to build hundreds of online resources to equip pro bono volunteers through ProBono.net/dc, to educate the public about complex legal topics through LawHelp.org/DC, and to connect providers with one another and with law firms to better serve D.C. residents. 

Herzog held many leadership positions in the D.C. legal community, and there is hardly a legal services provider or law firm that did not collaborate with him over the years. He was appointed to the D.C. Access to Justice Commission in 2011 and served on the D.C. Commission on Human Rights and the boards of the D.C. Bar Foundation, Whitman-Walker Clinic (now Whitman-Walker Health), D.C. Employment Justice Center, and the LGBT Bar Association of D.C. In 2012 the D.C. Bar Foundation awarded him the Jerrold Scoutt Prize, which recognizes outstanding legal services lawyers in the District of Columbia.

After leaving the Pro Bono Center, Herzog opened a consulting and coaching practice for nonprofit organizations and leaders. In 2017 he was appointed pro bono counsel for Sidley Austin LLP where he served for three years. During his tenure, Sidley Austin won the D.C. Bar’s Pro Bono Law Firm of the Year award (2018–2019).

Earlier in his career, Herzog was an adjunct professor of law at D.C. Law Students in Court (now Rising for Justice) and a senior staff attorney at The Legal Aid Society’s Criminal Defense Division in New York City. He earned his JD from The George Washington University Law School in 1986.

The Pro Bono Center joins the community and his family in grieving the loss of a loving husband, devoted father, and tireless advocate. Herzog’s legacy will continue in the thousands of lives he helped lift to a better place, the legal services programs that serve more D.C. neighbors every day, and the lawyers and staff he mentored who carry on inspired by his conviction, compassion, and care.