In 2010, when Brackett B. Denniston III, senior vice president and general counsel of General Electric, received an award for pro bono work, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg praised him as a "pro bono champion."

Denniston, who works out of the company's Fairfield office, is the head of an in-house staff of about 1,200 GCs, 20 to 25 percent of whom work in Connecticut. Of that number, he said, well over 50 percent of them engage in pro bono work.