Community and pro bono activity AROUND THE WORLD

AUSTRIA

Community

Last year we donated to Europahaus des Kindes, a Vienna-based children's charity.

Volunteers participated in the Vienna Night Run, a charity run that supports Licht für die Welt, an organisation that is committed to saving eyesight and improving the lives of people with disabilities in underprivileged regions of the world.

Pro bono

Human trafficking is a growing human rights problem. We are working with Lawyers Without Borders on its Trafficking in Persons training project, helping provide case studies on the human trafficking situation in Albania and Macedonia, among other Eastern European countries. Our colleagues in New York will be working on other similar case studies.

Belgium

Community

We continued our relationship with Ecole Sainte-Marie in Saint Gilles by participating in their reading programme with children from disadvantaged areas. We also donated books, toys and funds for day trips.

In total we collected €14,000 worth of second-hand computer equipment for various schools.

As part of the firm's Community Challenge month, the Brussels office organised a school outing for around 100 underprivileged children.

Pro bono

In addition to participating in the legal aid regime of the Brussels bar, our main pro bono client is the European Citizen Action Service (ECAS). We have advised on a number of matters including bringing formal complaints to the European Ombudsman on issues affecting European citizens' rights.

We also helped ECAS produce its report 'Mind the Gap – Towards a better enforcement of European citizens' rights of free movement', which highlights the obstacles facing EU citizens as they exercise their rights of free movement.

China

Community

In 2009 we raised around HK$175,000 for the Children's Medical Foundation as part of the Final Hour Appeal. The funds have gone to help indigent families access life-changing medical care for infants. This programme was designed to follow up our 2008 Final Hour Appeal in which we raised enough to train staff and open a neo-natal intensive care unit for a semi-rural hospital in Yunnan province.

We opened our doors to secondary school students to give them a taste of a working environment as part of the international ENGAGE programme.

Last summer our people picked up 300kg of rubbish strewn over the beach on Soko Islands in Hong Kong – winning an award for team spirit in the process.

Pro bono

Our Beijing office has continued its work with the Half the Sky Foundation. This work is typically led from our Beijing office, but in the past 12 months has also involved our London, Amsterdam, Hong Kong, New York and Paris offices. Our ongoing work includes advising on corporate establishment and charitable status registration in different jurisdictions, assisting long-term funding agreements and establishing operational partnerships.

As the relationship with Half the Sky spans a number of jurisdictions and practice areas, it is a real demonstration of the international strength our firm can lend to pro bono activities.

France

Community

Last year we continued our relationship with Paul Verlaine middle school in Paris as part of the ENGAGE 'Un jour, un métier' project. This involved inviting disadvantaged children into the office for work experience.

We returned for the third year running to the CADA asylum seekers' centre in 2009 – and helped build a tool shed and allotment to allow residents to grow their own fruit and vegetables.

Pro bono

We are a founder member of a new human rights organisation called the Alliance des Avocats pour les Droits de l'Homme. The alliance brings together NGOs and law firms to promote human rights through the development
of pro bono work in France.

Projects have included advising the organisation on questions relating to human trafficking between Malaysia and Thailand.

Germany

Community

In 2009 we launched our broad-ranging support for the START Foundation. This scholarship programme provides educational and financial support to students from a migrational background. The aim is to raise their career aspirations. Our activity included job orientation workshops at our offices, financial support and pro bono work for the Foundation and its alumni organisation.

With our job-coaching projects through the international ENGAGE programme, we have continued to work with local schools, businesses and community organisations to increase students' employment prospects.

The programme is now in its fifth year, and over 350 students have benefitted.

Pro bono

A fascinating range of legal issues combined with a diverse client base have helped our pro bono practice to grow across our German offices.

Our recent work includes advising streetfootballworld, a social profit organisation that uses football to promote issues such as children's rights and education, social integration, environmental protection, health and peace-building.

We are also helping Resist to Exist, the organisers of Berlin's biggest punk festival, to run its event. Elsewhere we are advising UNICEF on the winding-up and administration of an inheritance, which includes real estate and a remarkable art collection spread over several jurisdictions.

Italy

Community

Last year we again hosted the WWF in Rome to celebrate World Environment Day. The conferences cover all manner of topics relevant to the organisation.

We continue to support Banco Alimentare, a member of the European Federation of Food Banks, which gathers excess food and distributes it to local humanitarian or charity organisations. Volunteers from our Milan and Rome offices took part in the national food collection day, during which approximately 8,600 tons of food were collected.

Pro bono

Since 2009 our Italian offices have been advising Médecins sans Frontières on the potential implications – both under Italian and international law – of delivering emergency aid to undocumented migrants and asylum seekers trying to cross the Mediterranean through the Channel of Sicily.

The advice considered the circumstances under which the humanitarian organisation and its staff might legally provide assistance and emergency aid to migrants in international and Italian national waters without incurring criminal and administrative sanctions.

We are also working with the Italian partner of ENGAGE, Cittadinanzattiva, an Italian not-for-profit that works to help protect EU citizens' rights. Through queries to its legal helpline we have advised it on a number of discrete matters involving EU law, employment law and negligence.

Japan

Community

Volunteers from the Tokyo office were part of the organising committee for The Financial Industry in Tokyo (FIT) For Charity run in 2009. The run attracted more than 5,000 runners in 2009 and some of the Freshfields Tokyo team took part. We also raised funds for various local non-profit organisations.

In the past volunteers worked with the Wheelchair Access Map project. This initiative, run by the YMCA, provides accessibility information on a website for people in wheelchairs. Its goal is to encourage the provision of improved access to activities that able-bodied people take for granted. Members of the team involved with the project were provided with a wheelchair, so they could experience the difficulties encountered first hand.

Pro bono

Our office in Tokyo has been helping environmental not-for-profit organisation Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) set up a new subsidiary in Japan. Through its innovative 'information requests', CDP collects and holds the largest database of corporate climate change information in the world.

Middle East

Community

Our people rased money for Care Packages for Labourers, an organisation that supports workers in Dubai.

Freshfields also raised money and distributed literature on behalf of Friends of Cancer Patients – helping support sufferers and raise awareness.

Another money-raising effort was for The Little Wings Foundation, an independent organisation dedicated to providing medical assistance for children in the region
who have musculoskeletal deformities.

As part of our Ramadan charity activity, in 2009 we helped with a number of causes across the region.

Pro bono

We have been approved as a Volunteer Law Firm on the recently established pro bono programme run by the DIFC Courts, the Dubai International Financial Centre's (DIFC) independent, common law judicial system. The first of its kind in the region, this scheme enables individuals who cannot afford legal support to get free advice and representation in the DIFC courts from approved lawyers and firms. So far the cases that have arisen have involved contractual and employment disputes.

Netherlands

Community

We helped the Sinterklaas Exists Foundation with the wrapping of gifts for underprivileged children (Sinterklaas being the Dutch for Santa Claus). The Foundation aims to provide a wonderful celebration of Christmas for those families living in poverty and for homeless children in the Netherlands. This year, around 4,500 underprivileged children received presents – and 40 per cent of our staff were involved with the Freshfields effort.

Pro bono

Our Amsterdam office advises a number of charity organisations, both national and international, on various matters such as the creation of corporate structures and corporate governance issues. Stichting Leerorkest and Stichting Coach4You are two examples of local initiatives. Stichting Leerorkest helps young and disadvantaged children in Amsterdam learn an instrument and play in an orchestra, helping with their self-confidence and promoting teamwork. Stichting Coach4You helps disadvantaged teenagers deal with the transition from primary to secondary school and coaches them to help prevent them from dropping out of school.

Russia

Community

We are continuing our relationship with the Kolomna Orphanage, organising excursions for the children. In December 2009, 29 children and their carers took
a special day out on a bus hired by the firm and accompanied by volunteers from our office.

Pro bono

We have recently embarked on a pro bono relationship with Oxfam to give it legal support in Russia, helping it with its global reach.

With support from our New York office we have started advising on arrangements relating to a women's microfinance project and are exploring new mandates involving our finance and corporate expertise.

Spain

Community

Last year we supported an organisation called Desarrollo y Asistencia, which covers a wide range of volunteer activities from hospital visits and support for parents of handicapped children to support for the elderly and the homeless.

Elsewhere we echoed Freshfields' firmwide commitment to helping underprivileged young people in our work with Spanish charities Fundación RAIS and Centre Compartir.

Volunteers ran marathons and raised funds for Entreculturas, a charity that supports a project in Honduras called Teacher at Home (Maestro en Casa). This provides education by radio for people without easy access to schools.

Pro bono

Our Spanish offices have been advising the Global Fund to fight Aids, tuberculosis and malaria on its Debt2Health initiative, which helps relieve the strain that countries receiving Global Fund financing face due to the considerable amount they spend on servicing external debt. Debt2Health converts a portion of external debt into new resources for health.

We advised the Global Fund on the debt swap agreement entered into between Germany, represented by the KfW, a German government-owned development bank, and Ecuador.

UK

Community

Our longest-running programme is Ready for Work, a work experience scheme designed to help equip homeless people with the skills to gain and sustain employment. The programme has been running for over 10 years and during this time over 160 people have participated, with 15 people finding permanent work at Freshfields as a result.

We run a mentoring programme at Haggerston Secondary School, also in London. This involves help in the lead-up to exams and hosting work experience visits. Additionally, two members of our staff sit on the school's governing body.

Also in education, Freshfields is involved with the Sutton Trust's Pathways to Law initiative. This helps students from non-professional families gain exposure to work opportunities – and helps persuade them that a career in the law might be something to aim for.

Pro bono

A team from our Dispute Resolution practice advised the All Party Parliamentary Group on Extraordinary Rendition (APPGER) on the legal standards applicable to this practice, which involves transporting suspected criminals to third-party countries for interrogation and imprisonment.

We helped research and draft the APPGER's consultation paper: 'Extraordinary Rendition: Closing the Gap', which includes proposed legislation designed to criminalise more effectively the use of transport facilities in the UK and its overseas territories for such rendition.

US

Community

Last summer our New York team again worked with interns from the Legal Outreach programme. These students, from underserved communities in the city, spent a week in our office working on a mock joint venture case devised by our lawyers.

For the second year in a row, many volunteers from our Washington office assisted the DC Central Kitchen staff
as part of Freshfields' international Community Challenge efforts. This organisation distributes food to worthy causes about the city.

In a new project for 2009, 16 volunteers from New York sewed 'surgi-dolls' for hospitalised children. Surgi-dolls help in explaining to young patients what is involved in upcoming surgical procedures.

Pro bono

In New York we support Human Rights First in representing asylum seekers before the US Immigration Court. Our work protects the rights of individuals – especially those fleeing brutal regimes – and helps build the case for them to seek safe asylum in the US.

Working with Kosovo counsel, our New York office has assisted Mercy Corps and the Foundation for International Community Assistance (FINCA International) in presenting alternative structures for the regulation of microfinance institutions to the Kosovo government to expand the provision of microfinance services for members of the public.

We also advised the Special Court for Sierra Leone, a hybrid international criminal court set up to try war crimes and other atrocities committed in Sierra Leone. As the Court is now entering its last phase of operation, our arbitration team advised on how this model of transitional justice should come to an end.

Vietnam

Community

Last year we supported many charities that help people in need in Vietnam, including Operation Smile and The Blue Dragon Children's Foundation.

Pro bono

Supporting disadvantaged children is at the heart of our pro bono programme. As part of a wider project across the firm, our recent work includes contributing to a study on legislative frameworks for child survival in support of Save the Children's 'Every One' campaign. The study seeks to highlight indirect causes that have led to lower than hoped for reductions in the rates of under-five child mortality rates.