While other Fenwick & West lawyers logged more than 50,000 pro bono hours during the past five years, associate Gaurav Sud’s mergers-and-acquisitions practice never afforded him much chance to contribute.

Then he jumped at a rare opportunity. Two nonprofits, Shelter Network and InnVision the Way Home, decided they could better help the homeless in California as one large organization. About nine months and 150 hours later, one of the biggest nonprofit mergers in the state’s history was finished.