Community and pro bono awards

Our community and pro bono programme has won several awards.

2007

Winner CSR Firm of the Year at the 2007 Legal Business Awards: ‘Freshfields led the way in the legal sector by being the first law firm to produce a CSR report under the Global Reporting Initiative guidelines in January 2006. The firm has also been a strong supporter of human rights group Reprieve.’
Awarded a Business in the Community (BITC) Big Tick for our Ready for Work programme, which provides work experience placements to homeless people. Between 2000-2007, 126 individuals have completed successful placements at the firm, 14 of whom have taken up permanent jobs here. Others have gone on to work elsewhere. The Big Tick is given to companies that can demonstrate the positive impact of their responsible business behaviour on society, as well as on the company itself.
Winner The Law Society of England and Wales’ Excellence in Social Responsibility Award 2007 for our programme for homeless people: the ‘range of projects including supporting the homeless charity Crisis on its Urban Village project by providing free legal advice on housing issues made their entry stand out. Most notable was a programme designed to break the cycle of homelessness and social exclusion through providing work experience, job coaching, informal support schemes and pro bono legal advice. The firm offers 20 placements a year and to date has employed 14 people on a permanent basis.’

Won Pro Bono Activity of the Year Award at the 2006 Lawyer awards. This was for our intervention in the landmark House of Lords case challenging the admissibility of evidence obtained by torture overseas by agents of a foreign state. Over 60 of our lawyers worldwide were involved in preparing a comparative law brief on 22 different jurisdictions to present to the Lords, giving 1,200 hours of their time to our pro bono clients, the Commonwealth Law Association, the International Commission of Jurists and the Human Rights Institute of the International Bar Association.
Our job coaching programme in Frankfurt received an award from the Hessian government.

Awarded the Solicitors Pro Bono Group Pro Bono Award (over 100 fee earners category) for our contribution to the Tsunami Legal Assistance Helpline set up in the aftermath of the 2004 Tsunami, cases we have undertaken for individual clients and our representation of clients at pro bono mediations.
Simon Jones, an associate in our dispute resolution practice, received an award from the Young Solicitors Group (large firm category) in recognition of his work for several litigants in person.
Our Hong Kong office was awarded Asian Legal Business Pro Bono Law Firm of the Year 2005, largely due to the work Mary Wicks did to raise funds for those affected by the 2004 Tsunami. Mary was also nominated in the Asian Legal Business Hot 100 for her work.

Awarded the BITC Barclays European Community Impact Award for our work in the community.
The Hong Kong Council of Social Service awarded us the Caring Company logo for our work with Global Hand and Crossroads.

We won a highly commended certificate at the BITC Awards for Excellence in recognition of our Ready for Work programme