Our volunteers

'We think it is important to promote volunteering around the world, not only in our offices but among other employers. We see the benefits it brings to our people and to those with whom they come into contact, for example, in schools, colleges, and organisations working with homeless people. For our volunteers it is personally rewarding, it improves their skills and confidence, and is a real opportunity to build relationships with other people in the firm. We are very proud of all our volunteers for putting so much time into this important aspect of our corporate social responsibility programme.'
John Davies, ACT partner, member of community and pro bono committee, and member of Business in the Community/ENGAGE's leadership group (a group that promotes volunteering around the world)

Graph of people involved 2006/7 - 2007/8

^{1 Amsterdam, Barcelona, Berlin, Bratislava, Brussels, Cologne, Düsseldorf,
Frankfurt, Hamburg, Madrid, Milan, Moscow, Munich, Paris, Rome, Vienna}
^{2 Beijing, Dubai, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tokyo}
^{3 New York, Washington, DC}

We are delighted to have seen a significant increase (from 24 per cent to 29 per cent) in participation in our community and pro bono volunteering activities across the firm, partly as a result of our first firmwide team challenge month – Community Challenge – in 2007.

In total, over 1,500 people worldwide were involved in our community and pro bono activities in 2007/2008, compared with 1,300+ in 2006/2007. Some of our offices and departments are more actively engaged in our community and pro bono programme than others, and we hope to see more consistent levels of activity over the coming year.

Participation varies for many reasons. Attitudes towards volunteering differ in each country, as does the approach to providing pro bono legal advice. For example, the US and UK have strong traditions of providing free legal advice, and in Brussels this is part of a lawyer's training, whereas in Germany (until recently) pro bono work was difficult to undertake.

Graph of hours contributed 2006/7 - 2007/8

Firmwide,16,409 hours were contributed to pro bono advice and 13,635 to community investment activities in 2007/2008. This compares with 15,393 pro bono hours and 9,612 community investment hours in 2006/2007.

Increasing pro bono work

In 2008, we began our international pro bono campaign which aims to double pro bono hours by 2011. As part of this, pro bono partners have been appointed in each London practice group and CSR partners have taken on more responsibility for pro bono in each office – our Beijing and US offices now have partners with specific responsibility for pro bono. New departmental pro bono committees have also been formed to develop activities. Pro bono hours are now treated as client hours for internal reporting purposes; and we have strengthened the appraisal process to capture professional development gained through pro bono work.

In 2008, our head of pro bono took on more of a global responsibility to develop the international programme, and a new pro bono manager was created in London.

Our Brussels, Frankfurt, Hong Kong, Moscow and Paris offices are all active participants in the emerging pro bono roundtable movement.

Our community and pro bono data has been compiled according to London Benchmarking Group (LBG) measurement principles.