With the fifth National Pro Bono week just round the corner, Neil Rose looks at how pro bono work has developed since it began


In the past we have had the likes of the pro bono bus, but this year there is little need for gimmicks to publicise the fifth National Pro Bono Week, which begins on 5 June.


With the first anniversary of the 7 July attacks looming, the work of solicitors on the London bombings helpline demonstrates better than anything how pro bono work can make a real difference to people’s lives and society.


Thus far the helpline has received 168 calls on a wide range of issues: death certificates, probate and insurance matters, employment questions – including claims for death in service benefits – help with gaining access to bank accounts of deceased relatives and, in the majority of cases, assistance in preparing compensation claims from the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority (see [2005] Gazette, 10 November, 22).

For LawWorks manager Graham Bucknall, the helpline also illustrates the increasingly slick way the profession is operating in pro bono. LawWorks quickly organised the infrastructure, members of the Law Society’s practice advice team manned the hotline, and then 43 firms have actually handled the work.


Mr Bucknall joined LawWorks around the time of the first pro bono week, and says he has observed a ‘huge change’ in attitudes towards such work. Back in 2002, staff at the Solicitors Pro Bono Group (as LawWorks then was) had to call up firms to persuade them to take on projects; now, firms call every week offering to help.


There are around 50 LawWorks clinics held across the country each week, and it is estimated that they provide about 28,000 pieces of advice annually. This translates to approximately £2 million of work at regular charge-out rates and, more significantly, to around £8 per piece of advice when calculated in the context of the funding LawWorks receives. ‘That’s very cost-effective,’ Mr Bucknall notes.


A further 250 cases are taken that require more than one-off advice – around a quarter of which are employment disputes – and Mr Bucknall says the lawyers involved can spend 80 or 90 hours working on them.


One development that is set to change the way such cases are handled is the introduction of charitable fee-sharing. This has been approved by the Law Society Council but there are still a few more hurdles before it is in force. In essence, it would allow solicitors (both private practice and employed) to agree in the retainer to pass on to a charitable third party some or all of the fees paid by a client – as distinct from a unilateral decision to make a donation – and pay any fees received under a conditional fee agreement (CFA) to a charity.


It is envisaged that CFAs in particular will prove useful where lawyers currently act for charities in litigation on a pro bono basis (the bar might adopt a similar rule). They clearly have the potential to generate more funding for charities, but just as importantly, they introduce a costs risk that defendants currently do not face when against lawyers working pro bono. This should encourage more settlements. In addition, pro bono lawyers will be able retain any repayment of disbursements they have funded.


The one problem is that the pro bono CFA will not apply if the client is the charity that would benefit from the CFA, as this runs up against the indemnity principle.


National Pro Bono Week – which is backed by all branches of the legal profession, together with the Attorney-General’s pro bono committee – has undoubtedly acted as a catalyst. Mr Bucknall points to areas such as Birmingham, where local solicitors, barristers and legal executives have formed a pro bono forum that meets regularly to co-ordinate the work, so as to ensure interest is not just concentrated on the first week of June each year. One of the 50-plus events of the 2006 week (there were 11 back in 2002) will be a mass signing of the pro bono protocol by Birmingham lawyers.



Another area galvanised is that of law students, with pro bono clinics at Cardiff University and the University of Hertfordshire being launched this month.


Kara Irwin, director of the pro bono centre at BPP Law School, considers that the week plays two vital roles for her students. First, it proves to them that pro bono is not some sort of ‘fun extra-curricular activity’ done only at law school; rather it is a commitment shared by the profession as a whole and to be taken on into their working lives. Second, it makes students feel part of the wider profession.


The tag-line for the week is ‘Pro bono – it’s part of being a lawyer’, and there can be little doubt that this will ring truer with those for whom it has been part of student life too. ‘What’s so fantastic is that we’re training up a generation of lawyers who are competent and confident in getting involved in pro bono work,’ says Ms Irwin.


BPP currently runs 11 projects, ranging from the usual legal advice clinic to a legal translation group. One project it is showcasing during the week is its intellectual property group, so as to rouse ‘those parts of the profession who don’t think pro bono is for them’.


The pro bono focus on students is also an issue for law firms and chambers. In the US, says Ms Irwin, who qualified there, students often ask prospective employers about their pro bono activity. ‘I’m trying to make that a standard question in interviews here,’ she says. ‘It’s a huge motivator for firms.’


In fact, the US influence has proven significant in the growth of pro bono in the City in recent years; five of the seven nominations for best contribution by a law firm in this year’s LawWorks pro bono awards are the London offices of US firms, while the other two are merged US/UK practices.


However, this does not necessarily mean US firms are doing more pro bono work – they are just a lot more vocal about it. ‘There is almost nothing in the US legal tradition that doesn’t come from Britain. That’s hammered home from day one at law school,’ Ms Irwin explains. ‘The pro bono ethic has always been here; it is the media attention that has increased.’


Making marketing hay out of pro bono has always been a tricky issue Yet while the traditional British approach of just getting on with it is the more ‘noble’ one, Ms Irwin argues that publicising the work being done has the critical effect of encouraging others to get involved.


Michael Napier, the Attorney-General’s pro bono envoy, points to Nottingham as an example of the impact the week can have. It hosted one of the inaugural events back in 2002, which he says sowed the seeds for organised pro bono work in the city, especially among students. The school of law at Nottingham University and Nottingham Law School (part of Nottingham Trent University) will next week launch a joint annual lecture to reflect the aims and aspirations of National Pro Bono Week each year.


This year’s first lecture, to be given by the Attorney-General Lord Goldsmith, will also mark the launch of the first joint pro bono initiative between separate law schools and a local law society – the ‘askrobinhood’ advice line, to be staffed by students from both universities, and supported by the Nottinghamshire Law Society. Earlier this year, Nottingham Law School won the local law society’s annual pro bono award, recognising students’ work.


Mr Napier sees the week as contributing to the ‘gathering momentum’ behind pro bono. ‘I call it a pro bono movement,’ he says. ‘It’s not like a religion – we shouldn’t be evangelical about it. It’s a process.’



So while some still grumble about the very notion of pro bono (the ‘how many plumbers work for free?’ argument), legal aid lawyers point out that they are effectively doing it all day, every day, and others are concerned to ensure pro bono is not seen as a replacement for legal aid, it appears that pro bono really is becoming ‘part of being a lawyer.’