The Hennepin County Bar Association named Keith S. Moheban as the recipient of this year's Pro Bono Publico Award, presented annually to one attorney in the private bar "in recognition of the time, knowledge, and devotion given utilizing legal skills for the good of our community." The award ceremony will be on March 8, 2011, at the Hennepin County Bar Benefit, held at the Radisson Plaza Hotel in Minneapolis.

A shareholder and business litigator at Leonard, Street and Deinard, Moheban co‑chaired the firm's Pro Bono Committee from 1995 to 2007. During that time, he also chaired the firm's Legal Clinic Intake and Screening Committee, which met weekly to screen all new cases that came in from the firm's Legal Clinic, located at the Community University Health Care Center in the Phillips neighborhood in Minneapolis, to determine eligibility, case merit and volunteer placement. The Legal Clinic has been nationally recognized for its innovative model as a medical/legal collaborative.

In addition to administering the Legal Clinic and chairing the Pro Bono Committee, Moheban throughout this time managed his own caseload of pro bono matters, in which he represented indigent clients on housing, Social Security, consumer and family law matters. He has devoted a minimum of 50 hours in representing pro bono clients in each year since he joined the firm in 1994, and in many years has substantially exceeded that aspirational goal.

When asked about the benefits of participating in pro bono work, Moheban said, "The Legal Clinic's work serves a great role as a 'reality check' for attorneys. It reminds us that practicing law is a privilege that requires responsibility to ensure that everyone has equal access to the law."

Moheban continues to be very active in pro bono activities. He still volunteers at the Legal Clinic, where he handles his own Social Security and family law cases while supervising other attorneys on similar cases. He has also been instrumental in organizing support for the firm's Equal Justice Works Fellow program, which, in partnership with Professor Peter Edelman of Georgetown University Law Center, has selected and funded four successive two-year fellowships at the Legal Aid Society of Minneapolis. Moheban also has been on the Board of Directors of the Fund for the Legal Aid Society since 2006.

In addition, Moheban has a long history of providing pro bono work for environmental organizations (which was his initial area of legal practice), and he currently provides pro bono representation for The Nature Conservancy.