Community and pro bono policy
To encourage and enable everyone who works here to spend one working day a year on team challenges and additional working time on community and pro bono activities facilitated by the firm.
To focus our efforts on four themes:
- promoting human rights;
- improving access to justice for individuals and not-for-profit organisations in need by providing free legal advice;
- reducing homelessness; and
- raising the levels of achievement and aspirations of young people from disadvantaged backgrounds, and improving their skills.
To concentrate our financial support and support in-kind, including the provision of office space and design and print, on the community and pro bono partners that enable our volunteering activities.
To support initiatives that benefit the communities that are local to our offices and, more broadly, that make a positive difference to some of the wider legal and social issues of today, particularly promoting greater social inclusion.
Our approach is about meeting the needs of the community, investing in communities and providing our people with opportunities to use their personal and professional skills to make a positive difference in a variety of ways.
Our approach to pro bono legal work is that in all circumstances we should provide outstanding professional advice. Every matter we take on goes through the same procedures as any other case work and we ensure the same high standards.
We favour projects that are relevant for our firm and that reflect and reinforce our values: excellence in all we do; outstanding teamwork; trusted relationships with our clients; and imagination.
Our approach is shaped by our commitment to investing in the community and involving our people, so we rarely make philanthropic donations or respond to emergency appeals.
We aim to ensure that our community and pro bono work is supported, recognised and rewarded consistently across the firm. We are working towards ensuring that all pro bono work is appraised and taken into consideration in work allocation, and aim to adopt a similar approach to community investment activities. We are also working towards recognising these activities in the bonus system as part of people's professional development and contribution to the firm.
Each office, together with its community partners, is responsible for interpreting our policy in a way that is appropriate to the local community.
Our community and pro bono programme is an intrinsic element of our wider social and environmental programme, helping us achieve our commitment to be a social and environmentally responsible business. This includes our commitment to promote greater diversity and inclusivity within our own firm and, more generally, within commercial law.