Profiles
Oliver Jury Bridges the Divides in Pro Bono
March 27, 2026
Before attending law school at American University, Oliver Jury tackled landlord–tenant and small business disputes for Open Communities, a Chicago-area nonprofit that advocates for fair and affordable housing through community-based mediation.
Working on these housing disputes was a formative experience for Jury, now an associate at Blank Rome LLP, as he developed his skills in negotiation, communication, and troubleshooting while learning to bring both parties to the table to reach a positive outcome. He also saw the major power imbalance between landlords and tenants, noting that the vast majority of tenants are often unable to secure legal representation in housing cases, while most landlords can and do. It was this work that pushed Jury toward a career in the law.
“The driving force for me is that imbalance,” says Jury.
Mediation is an important focus for Jury, whether he is working on government contract matters at Blank Rome or handling pro bono cases. Jury firmly believes that many legal disputes can be resolved before they reach the courtroom.
“Having advocates on both sides makes sitting down and getting on a call or sending an email a much easier prospect because you’re often dealing with parties where there’s a relationship breakdown,” Jury says. “If one side loses trust or gets frustrated and there’s no person there to calm the situation down and really assess it for what it is, it can really become untenable.”
Joining Blank Rome in 2021, Jury spent his first two years practicing in the firm’s general litigation group, where he received valuable, broad-based experience in areas such as insurance, corporate and commercial litigation, labor and employment, and government contracts. It was in that latter area that he found his niche: handling False Claims Act investigations, tackling fraud and whistleblower disputes.
“That became sort of the bread and butter of my practice,” says Jury.
Jury wasted little time getting involved in pro bono work, noting that it is a good juxtaposition with his work in government contracts. He gives pro bono matters the same weight as billable client issues. For his efforts, Legal Aid DC honored him with its Klepper Prize for Volunteer Excellence in 2025.
“Our clients are not going to accept anything less than top-tier client service, and treating a pro bono client as anything less than a fully fledged client is a mistake,” says Jury.
Drawing on his experiences at Open Communities, Jury has made housing cases a pillar of his pro bono work. He helps lead Blank Rome’s partnership in the Housing Right to Counsel Project. Spearheaded by Legal Aid DC, the project is a coalition of several area law firms providing legal services to low-income District residents facing eviction. Through this work, Jury leverages his experience in mediation to help vulnerable tenants stay in their homes.
Jury notes that housing disputes stem from a slow erosion of the relationship between landlord and tenant. He says that while the elements that lead to these disputes are often similar, such as missed rent, it’s important to take a closer look at the situation to determine the cause. Is the tenant unable to pay because they lost their job? Is rent being withheld because of maintenance issues that the landlord failed to address? Jury says issues like these can be communicated between parties, helping to “open doors to conversations” and reestablish trust. Bridging these divides is important, Jury adds, because when the case concludes, the tenant will still regularly encounter and interact with their landlord.
“You’d rather have your landlord saying ‘good morning’ to you than turning a blind eye or giving a cold shoulder. Nobody wants to live like that,” Jury says. “A negotiated resolution is better than anything else because it means that both sides got something out of it. Maybe there’s a path forward, as opposed to total victory or total defeat.”
In addition to tackling housing cases, Jury is passionate about pro bono work in family law. Growing up in a single-parent household, Jury is aware of the struggles that parents can face, such as custody rights and child support issues, and how these issues can be intertwined with housing.
“All of these issues were very much live wires for me as a child,” says Jury.
Jury says that when he first approaches a pro bono case, he takes ample time to brief himself on the issues. At that first meeting with the client, Jury enquires about their day-to-day life, explores what the dynamic leading to their issue looks like, and stays mindful that he isn’t tone-deaf to their lived experience.
“You have to ask them about their actual experience. And from that, we can build,” says Jury. “If you’re not meeting people where they’re at, then how will they trust you if you just come in with solutions?”
When it comes to balancing his practice and his pro bono work, Jury says that Blank Rome has attorneys work on pro bono cases in tandem, and he is often paired with another associate on a case. Working in tandem allows him to tackle cases with more junior attorneys, helping them to get critical, hands-on experience, Jury says. “It’s really a great way to open doors because it gets junior attorneys exposed to these systems and makes them feel more comfortable doing pro bono work,” he adds.
Jury says he takes a proactive approach when engaging the firm’s younger lawyers about pro bono work. He often meets with them for lunch or coffee to welcome them to the firm and to provide a lay of the land. He also invites junior attorneys to legal events, allowing them to learn about Washington’s legal community and meet other professionals.
“It’s all about creating that interconnectedness and laying out the options,” Jury says, “because unless you’re presented with the options, you don’t know what’s on the table.”
He connects junior attorneys to the key people doing the work and encourages attorneys to work laterally, partnering with their peers to tackle pro bono and support one another’s growth. “If I can lower that barrier for entry for our juniors, it just makes it more likely that they continue to take these cases,” Jury says.
In addition, Jury urges those in senior and leadership roles to work with junior attorneys to help build their commitment to pro bono service. “To the extent you can open doors for the people who come behind you and then hold them open as long as you can, I think it’s so unbelievably valuable,” says Jury.
When it comes to taking on pro bono, Jury also advises attorneys to pace themselves and understand their limits as they work these cases. He says attorneys should not take on more than one or two pro bono cases at a time and should split the work with another associate when necessary. Taking those precautions, attorneys can get to know their clients and cases on a deeper level without feeling hurried or stretched thin, preventing details from falling through the cracks and avoiding the pitfalls that can lead to poor client service.
Upon winning the 2025 Klepper Prize, Jury said he was humbled to be honored by the District’s legal community. “If this is the thing that I’ll be known for, then I’ll happily hang my hat on that,” says Jury.
