More and more lawyers are taking time out to take part in international pro bono work, and, it seems, many law firms are happy to support them. Polly Botsford reports


Like cats and fine wine, law has not traditionally travelled very well. What use is an English lawyer in Nigeria? How can a corporate City solicitor defend the human rights of the Kurds? Or assist the Laotian Bar Association? Well, it turns out, they can, quite considerably. There has been a surge in UK-based lawyers using their skills to provide help in developing countries, or doing what is loosely called international pro bono work.



What is more, this trend may be given an added boost as law firms become more open to the notion of assistants and associates travelling to do their pro bono work, perhaps for the odd week, perhaps during a three-month sabbatical or even a year’s career break.



The concept of international pro bono work was born in the US when the American Bar Association set up the Central and Eastern European Law Initiative in 1990 to provide assistance in former communist countries. Since then, a number of organisations – such as the Solicitors International Human Rights Group, LawWorks and the International Bar Association (IBA) – have brought together individual solicitors and barristers who have taken the time and initiative to do international pro bono work.



There was then a surge of interest following the Asian tsunami in 2004, as demonstrated by Oxfam’s 1,000 City Lawyers project (there were actually 1,400). Here were solicitors with ‘a desire to do something’ and ‘to use skills rather than wallets’, as they said at the time, but with no structured means for them to do it. It was at this point that an organisation known as Advocates for International Development (A4ID) was instigated to make permanent the commitment that those 1,400 lawyers had made.



A4ID matches international pro bono projects with lawyers in Britain. Membership of the organisation stands at 166, with over 2,000 additional supporters – a huge growth since its inception only a couple of years ago. ‘Within 15 minutes of sending out an email, a project is taken up,’ explains Katie Hutt, one of A4ID’s trustees and a real estate solicitor at US/UK firm Reed Smith Richards Butler, one of the law firms which helped A4ID get off the ground.



International pro bono work was put firmly on the map when, in January, Lord Goldsmith, then Attorney-General, set up his international pro bono committee to co-ordinate the plethora of activities and ensure dialogue between organisations.



Now there are also organisations which, alongside traditional gap-year activities such as conservation and wildlife projects, that specifically offer ‘grown-up’ gap years focusing on legal work. One such organisation is a Scotland-based charity, Challenge Worldwide, which has programmes in India, Bangladesh and Belize. Qualified lawyers can get involved in a number of projects, involving anti-corruption, protecting workers’ rights in unregulated industries, and assisting in the legal reform of child’s rights.



As well as the increase in the number of organisations, lawyers are increasingly making the time to join them – and asking their firms to make the time too. More firms are offering sabbaticals, either formally or informally, so that lawyers have the opportunity to help out abroad. Mark Ellis, executive director of the IBA, explains: ‘Law firms are now competing for the brightest associates and are a lot more willing to offer flexibility to attract them.’



National firm Eversheds has over the past five years been testing out a ‘lifestyle policy’. ‘Our aim is to attract and retain the best people, which means that we are always looking for ways to improve our people-centred policies... including a sabbatical-leave scheme’, says HR director Caroline Wilson.



Magic circle firm Linklaters has introduced a ‘time bank scheme’, which allows lawyers to accrue days off in lieu if they have been doing long hours, so that they can take a ‘mini-sabbatical’. The Government Legal Service also supports these activities, though actual policies on sabbaticals and career breaks vary from department to department.



Some firms have taken a different tack and treat international pro bono work as normal client work, and, therefore, lawyers are not expected to take time off to do it. Julia Dodds, a litigator in the Birmingham office of Reed Smith Richards Butler, who works on an A4ID project involving the rights of street children in Tanzania, explains: ‘For us, it is client work like any other, so it’s part of my normal workload. Here you are strongly encouraged to do pro bono work’.



So what are all these dedicated professionals actually doing? International pro bono work supports the notion of the rule of law in countries where legal systems and structures are precarious. Much of the work is capacity building, improving the legal infrastructure and providing adequate access to justice, but it varies hugely from trial observation to assisting in legal reforms, to training lawyers, writing handbooks and evaluating legislation.



Two schemes run by A4ID illustrate the point: one involves solicitors working with a non-governmental organisation in Afghanistan called Womankind, which is taking part in the consultation process for new legislation to protect women; the other is assessing the impact of what is known as the Rural Code on nomadic tribes in Niger, where the tribes are being forced into permanent settlements.



Firm-led examples include a project involving 25 lawyers from the UK/US firm DLA Piper, which was involved in compiling a human rights litigation manual for the Southern Africa Litigation Centre based in Johannesburg. For individuals, the examples are as varied. Michael Ellman, chairman of the Solicitors International Human Rights Group, spent four months observing a high-profile trial in Ethiopia in a project run through the EU.



It goes without saying that it is rewarding work to help those who would otherwise not be able to afford it. But there are also other gains, as one volunteer explains. Raheel Khan went to Belize with Challenge Worldwide for three months earlier this year. He worked on new domestic violence legislation, even training the Belize police force which has new powers under the law. He believes the experience restored his faith in his own profession, and gave him huge amounts of confidence.



‘You get to use skills that you don’t even know you have – and to appreciate them – such as analysing legislation and undertaking training,’ he says. As an insolvency specialist, Mr Khan had no experience of domestic violence legislation at all. But, he explains: ‘You learn to transfer your skills in a way you would never do in a firm and you learn so much as a result.’



However, there are problems that lawyers face when they try and get involved. First, the enthusiasm of firms should not be exaggerated. Sabbaticals are unpaid and the take-up is still a very small percentage of fee-earners. A spokeswoman at City firm Berwin Leighton Paisner, which has a sabbatical policy, says: ‘We consider people and will look on the idea quite favourably, but it is quite unusual.’ Challenge Worldwide says that about half of its candidates had to resign because they were not allowed the time off by their firms.



Competition for work is steep. This is partly because many of the more traditional organisations do not have the same opportunities for lawyers as they do for doctors or teachers. Voluntary Service Overseas claims to offer short-term volunteer places for those with skills in ‘legal services’, but assignments do not appear to come up that often.



But this will change. The thrust is towards more projects of this kind and increasingly useful ways of matching the need to the provider. The IBA has just launched a website which matches foreign bar associations with large UK-based law firms so that they can make direct contact with each other.



The Law Society’s international department, which has for many years run a series of pro bono projects, such as recently setting up a legal aid project in Nigeria, is developing its work in this area. Tony Fisher, chairman of its international human rights committee, explains: ‘We will be running seminars and training courses to help those who want to get involved.’ He also stresses that ‘it is not just a job for specialists’ and the Law Society is looking for a broader spectrum of lawyers.



Surely now that law, and the legal profession itself, has packed its bags, it must be time for those cats and all that wine to follow.



Polly Botsford is a freelance journalist