COMMENT

Delivering hope on pro bono

Having announced three important initiatives at the Solicitors Pro Bono Group Conference, Michael Napier describes his role as envoy

After nearly 12 months as the Attorney-General's pro bono envoy, I am convinced that support and enthusiasm for pro bono has moved up a gear.

An envoy is a messenger.

My message is simple : pro bono is on the move - more participation, more

co-ordination, new projects, and increasing enthusiasm of lawyers to service the unmet need for legal advice to those who cannot afford it.

As part of that process, the attorney's committee, set up to co-ordinate pro bono activity nationwide, has identified three priorities to promote pro bono as part of the professional life of a lawyer, whatever branch of the profession and wherever located in practice.

My first message on behalf of the committee was to launch three initiatives at the Solicitors' Pro Bono Group Conference last Saturday:

l The pro bono protocol.

Formulated by the Solicitors' Pro Bono Group and the Bar Pro Bono Unit, it is a standards-based guide, endorsed by the attorney's committee and designed to encourage uniformity of approach and professionalism in the provision of pro bono advice and representation.

l Focus on law students and law schools.

Legal education institutions increasingly offer students the opportunity of clinical experience, seeing real clients under careful supervision.

The College of Law has pioneered clinical education as an option for legal practice course students; the Legal Advice Centre at Manchester University allows undergraduates to give advice supervised by academic staff and local practitioners.

These and other examples illustrate the benefits of pro bono as part of legal education, harnessing the enthusiasm of young lawyers who are keen to absorb at the outset of their careers the ethos of putting something back into the community.

l Development of a national pro bono Web site.

It is hoped that during National Pro Bono Week

(9-13 June) we will launch the site to co-ordinate and map the pro bono work being done in a currently uncharted national network.

Pro bono organisations, voluntary agencies and law firms will have links to their Web sites and will be able to communicate with one another via an electronic market place.

Controlled public access will make it possible to match those who need free advice with those who are willing to provide it.

The Attorney-General and his committee say 'pro bono work is an adjunct to, not a substitute for, legal aid'.

The Law Society's recent consultation paper on publicly funded legal services appears to recognise that a limited legal aid budget is the reality and that the taxpayer can never fully meet the demand for legal services.

Pro bono advice to vulnerable and socially excluded people helps to fill the gaps through the willing help of lawyers from firms of all sizes.

The City firm that encourages its lawyers to give advice at a law centre as part of its corporate social responsibility programme, and the high street legal aid firm that has for decades given free advice at the local Citizen's Advice Bureau, both play a vital part.

Their reasons for getting involved may differ, but as one headline claimed in a daily newspaper during last year's National Pro Bono Week: 'It is the work that counts not the motive'.

This year, during National Pro Bono Week, many countrywide events will encourage more lawyers to become involved in important pro bono work.

As research conducted last year by the University of Westminster concluded: 'The tradition of pro bono is a mechanism for elevating legal professionalism ...

the profession should seize the opportunity presented by the resurgence of pro bono to rebuild the connection between legal professionalism and public service.'

Michael Napier is the Attorney-General's envoy for the national

co-ordination for pro bono work and is a former president of the Law Society