The Solicitors Pro Bono Group (SPBG) has won £190,000 in funding from the Big Lottery Fund for its LawWorks for Community Groups project, it revealed this week.

The grant will secure the project for the next two years and enable LawWorks to deliver free legal advice to small charities, voluntary and community organisations and social enterprises.


The scheme employs two legally qualified project managers, who co-ordinate requests for help from community bodies.


The managers distil the relevant legal issues and offer the work to law firms through a centralised electronic system. Firms may then pick up the work and deal with it on a pro bono basis.


The LawWorks project has more than 80 member firms - as well as in-house legal departments such as Vodafone - and uses some 2,000 lawyers in a single year.


SPBG acting chief executive Robert Gill said LawWorks had received almost the full amount that it had sought from the lottery fund. He said: 'We had been running this project for a while, but funding [which had been provided by Vodafone and through money from membership fees] was beginning to run out. This will put us on an even keel for about 20 months.'