Employing pro bono methods

Julie Morris explains why employment lawyers must offer their expertise on a pro bono basis and profiles the various schemes that provide advice

This forthcoming Monday sees the launch of National Pro Bono week.

The aim is to promote the work done so far by the profession, but also to put lawyers wanting to get involved in touch with voluntary organisations and members of the public in need of assistance.

During the past few years, the pro bono movement has hugely increased its profile.

While pro bono work has clearly been carried out across the profession for years on an informal basis, these recent efforts have begun to match skills with need in a more systematic way.

The more focused this process can be, the more efficient and effective the help given is.

The Employment Lawyers Association pro bono committee has a wide database of employment lawyers, with specialist expertise in all areas of employment law.

We recognise that we have an extremely useful resource in the field of employment law.

But without the resource to co-ordinate our own projects, we can best use our time by seeking to match employment lawyers with pro bono schemes already in existence.

With the limited availability of legal aid, employment law is one of the areas where pro bono work is most needed.

Many individuals set out to pursue disputes, or claims and need specialist employment advice on the way.

The main two areas where sufficient assistance was not previously provided were at the preliminary stages, for initial advice, and, at the preparatory and hearing stages.

Therefore, we set out to find ways of meeting that need and have since been working with both the Solicitors Pro Bono Group and the Bar Pro Bono Unit.

Firstly, we have been promoting to our members the Solicitors Pro Bono Group's LawWorks Web scheme.

This scheme involves relatively short, finite pieces of advice provided in response to single legal questions through advice agencies such as Citizens Advice Bureaux.

Members of the public visit an advice centre which posts the question and the area of law on to the system, which then allocates a lawyer from a database of specialist volunteers in that field.

The lawyer will be notified by e-mail that there is a question available and can either accept or refuse it.

If refused, it is reallocated.

However, if the question can be taken then it is collected from a secure area, answered and returned to the advice agency which contacts the client.

This is a scheme which utilises our members' expertise in a specific way, and yet requires a minimum commitment.

For some years, the Bar Pro Bono Unit has co-ordinated barristers prepared to act for free with members of the public in need of free advice.

The Employment Lawyers Association has donated funds to the unit for the past four years, in the interests of supporting its work for employment claims.

However, the unit finds that for certain cases, solicitor help is desirable or even necessary to assist in the running of the case.

So it has decided to create a solicitor panel to assist in those situations.

Firms or individual solicitors will agree to be on the panel and to assist in cases where required.

This could involve the preparation of trial bundles, instructing experts or carrying out settlement negotiations - all work for which solicitors often have a great deal more experience.

Again, by signing up to the panel, there is no obligation to take on cases.

In this way, with a minimum of resources, we can seek to link the right assistance with the right need.

While it remains the case that the lion's share of pro bono work is done by the few, we hope that this co-ordinated approach will encourage those who have not previously volunteered to believe that, with a minimum amount of effort, they too can use their skills to carry out rewarding work for those who most need it.

Julie Morris is the chairwoman of the ELA's pro bono committee

LINKS: www.elaweb.org.uk