Now its 21st year, events and activities in Pro Bono Week offer an opportunity to celebrate and recognise the voluntary contributions made by lawyers across the four nations of the UK in giving free legal help to those in need.
LawWorks have organised some great events and are involved in several others taking place during Pro Bono Week and we hope you can join us:
LAUNCH EVENT: Cost of living crisis
Monday, 7th November, 6:30-7:30, Online
LawWorks InfoExchange: The business case for pro bono
Tuesday, 8th November, 2:00-3:30pm, Online
APPG on Pro Bono and Public Legal Education: Pro Bono 101: What is Pro Bono, and how can MPs signpost their constituents to Pro Bono legal support?
Wednesday, 9th November, 10:00-11:00pm, 1 Parliament St, Westminster
All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) with the LawWorks Clinics Programme
How to conduct a 'legal healthcheck' – for small charities
Wednesday 9th November, 5:30-7:00pm, at the offices of Reed Smith LLP
With LawWorks and TrustLaw
About Pro Bono Week
There are six key focus areas for this year’s Pro Bono Week, which are:
- Lawyers stepping forward when it matters: With society facing a cost of living crisis, and in light of the legal profession’s response to the pandemic and crises in Afghanistan and Ukraine, Pro Bono Week will discuss effective coordination of pro bono in emergencies.
- The climate crisis is real; what can lawyers do? Following COP 26 the desire of many lawyers to tackle climate change is growing. Broad issues include pro bono schemes incorporating a net zero strategy, the voice of the community and the powerful interventions that can happen when clients and in-house teams are involved.
- How to make the business case for pro bono: Events in 2021 underlined the value of pro bono within recruitment and retention, to enhance lawyers’ skillsets and to enable lawyers to make a difference through the law. We look forward to firms and chambers highlighting the impact of their pro bono work and sharing best practice in pro bono.
- Can remote volunteering truly overcome geographical distance? Many lawyers appreciate remote volunteering, but organisations also stress the importance of going to where community need is located. What does a creative and strategic blend of remote and in-person support look like?
- Pro bono; an ally of funded advice: Coordinating pro bono so that it works seamlessly alongside funded legal help can be more effective than a solely pro bono intervention. This year the sector is invited to showcase examples where mixed interventions have had a positive impact.
- Specialisation; can lawyers be trained to meet the most urgent needs? Meeting the most urgent legal needs in our communities is a top priority, especially during the cost of living crisis, but the skillset of lawyers with capacity to do pro bono work often does not match the area of need. Can secondary specialisation and investing in increasing supervisory capacity address these issues?
LawWorks will be running events across the week, see our events pages for more details. For details of all the events taking place, visit the probonoweek.org.uk website.