Access to justice

‘We have a long history of providing pro bono legal advice both in the local community through our support of legal advice centres and advocacy initiatives particularly in London. This is vital work and uses directly our legal skills and wider training. We believe our pro bono work at legal advice centres is not, and should never be, a substitute for legal aid provision. We do not advise those who may be eligible for legal aid and try to direct the clients to the appropriate legal aid providers. Nevertheless, our experience over the past year at some legal advice centres indicates that it has been harder to locate appropriate legal aid providers in certain areas.’
Paul Lomas, partner with responsibility for our pro bono work

We believe we have a responsibility as lawyers to provide pro bono legal advice and representation to clients who cannot afford to pay for it and where public funding is not available.

To focus our activities we aim to enhance access to justice by providing free legal advice to individuals and community organisations in need. We do this through legal advice centres and a network of specialist charities and community organisations.

Much of our work is focused on London, where there is a strong tradition of pro bono activities, going back beyond our longest-standing community partnership with the Tower Hamlets Legal Advice Centre. However, we want to see an increase in the amount of pro bono work taken on by our offices around the world and will be focusing on this in the future. To this end, several of our offices are working with other law firms to encourage and promote pro bono work via the fledgling pro bono roundtable movement, including in Brussels, Frankfurt, Hong Kong, Moscow and Paris.

London: providing pro bono legal advice for over 35 years

Our access to justice programme is most active in London, where we support four legal advice centres, including the drop-in centre at Tower Hamlets, which we have supported since 1973; many of our partners, including our senior partner Guy Morton, used to volunteer there when they first joined the firm.

We also have a longstanding relationship with the Advice Bureau at the Royal Courts of Justice Citizens Advice Bureau, where volunteers provide free legal advice for litigants in person who have cases in the High Court, especially in the Court of Appeal, often the day they seek advice.

Volunteers in London also represent clients from the Free Representation Unit appearing before tribunals on employment and social security cases, and work with the Independent Panel for Special Education Advice providing advice and representation to families who are appealing against their Local Education Authority’s decision about how their child’s special educational needs should be met. Our New York and Frankfurt offices have been involved in similar work.

Our practice teams also provide pro bono legal advice for community groups, helping us fulfil our commitments to tackling homelessness and helping young people realise their potential, as well as other charities, including Cancer Research UK.

Click here for details of our programme in London, Mainland Europe, Asia and Middle East, and the US.