Our approach

Our firmwide community and pro bono programme is shaped by the recognition that we have a responsibility to use our personal and professional skills to help people in need, to make a positive difference, and to invest in wider society, in particular in the next generation, as they are our clients, employees, suppliers and influencers of the future.

Our approach to pro bono legal advice

Our commitment to an active pro bono programme reflects our view that access to legal advice is fundamental to a thriving society, especially where it can correct an apparent manifest injustice or assist in establishing a legal right. In relation to our support for charities, it reflects our desire to provide pro bono advice to help the charity to grow; to enable them to play a greater role in fulfilling their primary purpose and to help far greater numbers of people.

Quite simply, our pro bono clients are clients of the firm. We owe them the same duties and responsibilities as we owe to our fee-paying clients.

Volunteering can be enjoyable and rewarding

We believe having a positive impact on important social and legal issues is good business practice. We also recognise that volunteers on our programme find it stimulating and rewarding; and develop their personal and professional skills. People enjoy the opportunity to make a difference and it can be a good way to meet colleagues, so we were pleased that the results of our 2008 surveys of our London-based community investment volunteers confirmed this – approximately 47 per cent of our volunteers completed the surveys. Of these:

  • 91 per cent find it enjoyable;
  • 87 per cent agree volunteering gives them a sense of achievement/is personally rewarding;
  • 88 per cent agree it is a good opportunity to meet other people in the firm;
  • 82 per cent agree they like to use their skills to benefit others;
  • 77 per cent feel our programme helps motivate the people who work here;
  • 68 per cent agree it helps to develop new skills and competencies of volunteers;
  • 96 per cent are motivated by the desire to give something back to the community, 99 per cent to make a difference and 91 per cent to do something different;
  • 97 per cent agree the project was worthwhile and addressed a real need;
  • 92 per cent agree it is important to contribute to wider society; and
  • 86 per cent agree it is good for the firm's reputation.

Our volunteers also think the schemes benefit the participants in our programmes:

  • 81 per cent of our volunteers on schools programmes agreed the schemes improved students' motivation;
  • 87 per cent thought they improved students' communication skills;
  • 94 per cent said it improved students' confidence/self-esteem;
  • 87 per cent thought it raised students' aspirations; and
  • 83 per cent said that it raised students' career ambitions.

Of the volunteers on our Ready for Work programme, 88 per cent thought that the placements had improved clients' confidence/self-esteem; and 91 per cent that they improved clients' communication skills.

Working in collaboration

We often work with our clients on community and pro bono activities, particularly through our participation in the Business in the Community (BITC) leadership groups on education, homelessness, climate change, and international volunteering and community engagement. Our participation in these programmes also influences the development of our community investment programme.

Our most notable collaborations with clients were the setting up of two drop-in legal advice centres in London, and our 2008 award-winning pro bono legal advice for a microfinance project for developing and emerging market countries for Deutsche Bank.

We also seek to support other businesses in different ways: for example, we are working with Citi, KPMG and BITC's ENGAGE on an online toolkit to encourage and enable more businesses to develop employee volunteering programmes, particularly initiatives that improve the skills for employability of disadvantaged groups of people. And, with Heart of the City, we mentor smaller businesses in the process of developing community investment programmes.

We are premier members of BITC, a unique movement of over 700 of the UK's top companies who want to improve their positive impact on society.