A new guide showing a wide disparity in the amount of pro bono work handled by law firms was launched by the Solicitors Pro Bono Group (SPBG) last week to help law students considering where to apply to for a training contract.

More than 300 law firms were surveyed by the SPBG, and the results will be published as a booklet to be handed out by universities and at recruitment fairs. However, only 40 firms replied, many of them US firms where there is a much stronger and long-standing ethos of pro bono work.


Bucknall: audit figures
As well as being required to state how many hours' pro bono work they did each year and who it was for, firms were asked whether partners supervised all pro bono work and whether there were dedicated full or part-time pro bono officers.


Susan Bucknall, chief executive of the SPBG, conceded that it is hard for the students to make comparisons between different firms, but said she intends to repeat the exercise annually so that it becomes more sophisticated. Students can already use the guide as a basis to question law firms, she added.


'I will be asking the Law Society if they can audit the figures in some way,' she said. 'It would also be useful to have [an explanatory note on] the size and type of the firm and putting the figures into context.'


Allen & Overy, for example, with 683 partners, lists 30,899 hours of pro bono work and community service. Charles Russell, with 86 partners, lists 2,437 hours; Clifford Chance, with 229 partners in England and Wales, reports exactly 30,000 hours.