Where can I find a lawyer in Los Angeles that may do pro-bono work for startups to review an equity contract and help the owners understand some of the legalese in there?

I disagree.  Law is not merchandise.  You do not get what you pay for.  You don't. Law is like medicine.  Another field where you do not get what you pay for, although it doesn't always seem that way. Major law firms, including the one I work for, as in Amlaw Top 100, must do pro bono.  Most of that work is done helping poor women get divorces from husbands in jail, or preparing adoption papers for relatives of children whose parents have surrendered them into foster care, or doing legal paperwork for nonprofits. Your interest in this company is not public service related so your pro bono opportunities do not exist.  Pro bono time is donated for the betterment of society.  The ACLU goes after civil rights violations.  Housing experts go after landlords.  They seek to protect those who cannot defend themselves, who need protection, not a free lunch. I appreciate your desire to minimize your costs.  But I think there is more to this than you mention that would drive you to seek advice you believe is available because you are perhaps not looking purely for a free lunch.  If so, please explain further. Meantime, perhaps you are not so much looking for the socially responsible pro bono counsel as for affordable legal service -- which trust me can be as good or better as a lawyer who charges you $500 an hour for their "expertise." Repeat:  You do not get what you pay for when it comes to lawyers. There are legal clinics in all the law schools.  I don't think they would take this one, but a contract law professor might find it intriguing to use it in class and explain it to you. Law professors know their stuff.  The legal clinics are very basic services usually designed to get people out of trouble -- the kind of trouble that poor people get into, like getting arrested and throw in jail.  And they work for free. I don't recommend Avvo or the online services -- I've seen them give out wrong advice, bad advice, self-serving "talk to a lawyer immediately" advice.  I think Quora is the best place to get free legal advice.  I have seen incredibly sharp and specific answers, against Quora policy I assume, dished out to desperate Quoran Askers. So if I were in your shoes, I would do 2 things. First, I would examine my contract and zero in on a section that concerns me or looks fishy or forms the basis for everything else. I don't know how technical your contract is but you sound smart enough to understand it, even as you're smart enough to know you don't know everything.  So pick out those lines and ask them one by one:  What does this mean? on Quora. Make sure you mention California law, contract law is all state-based unless you're dealing with Bankruptcy, which is federal.  And you are not bankrupt. Second, I would ask for a nice short one shot consultation with a contract lawyer.  Their time is valuable.  So you will likely have to pay a fee for this.  Expensive lawyers are not always right; I read one lawyer's comment last night on Quora that he does not consider "most" other lawyers to be worth their clients' time of day.  I totally agree.  Lawyers lose cases all the time but they always get paid. So no, you do not get what you pay for when you pay a lawyer. I would also check craigslist.  There are lots of unemployed lawyers out there looking for a little bit here a little bit there.  A lawyer excessed from a law firm where he does not fit in with their culture or where the firm had to shed employees to maximize profits because their marketing department is inept -- that's not a bad lawyer. People get lulled into thinking they have great legal representation because they shell out big bucks for their advice.  It's like shopping at Bloomingdales for them.  Buy a Prada bag and you look good with that bag.  Designer law firms are no better than the free lawyers down the street defending innocent people in criminal cases.  You do not get what you pay for in law. If you want to pay a reasonable fee, you can absolutely do that.  Start here on Quora.  Ignore the obnoxious answerers.  Study your contract; ask informed questions.  Good luck.