Pro bono: For the public good but not without its controversies

Pro bono legal service ?has always been part ?of our legal culture. ?Legal pro bono is an ?umbrella term for lawyers who voluntarily provide free legal services to individuals and charities which are otherwise unable to access legal advice. 

In the 1970s the phrase ‘pro bono’ – meaning ‘for the public good’ – became associated primarily with the voluntary legal services connected to the emergence of Law Centres and the adoption by some Citizens Advice Bureaux of a more overt legal orientation. 

In the early 1990s there was further growth in pro bono, mainly in large solicitors’ firms, many of which already did pro bono death penalty work through the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. A diverse culture of pro bono developed across the corporate legal sector. 

The growth of domestic and international pro bono work grew to reflect the interests and skills of an expanding legal population. Lawyers across England and Wales saw, and continue to see, pro bono work as both fulfilling an ethical obligation to help those in need, while also contributing to the personal and professional development of those who undertake the work.

In 2014, around 42 per cent of solicitors in England and Wales carried out pro bono work. This was undertaken for a range of clients, from a parent defending their right to keep their children to a global NGO working to improve the rights of women?in India. 

There is a variety of pro bono work carried out by solicitors from a range of legal areas, ?for example:

• Health sector specialist solicitor James Lawford Davies acted pro bono in a two-year legal battle against the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority to grant the wishes of a deceased man to give his 26-year-old widow time to rebuild her life before choosing whether to conceive with his preserved sperm. 

• International law firm Hogan Lovells provided a full pro bono advisory service to establish ?a new social enterprise called Bite the Ballot, which engages young people in the democratic process and helps them to understand the part they play ?in it and actively lobby for change through IT solutions.

• Family lawyer Rebecca Stevens carried out over 100 hours of pro bono work on behalf of a father with learning difficulties who faced having his child removed and placed for adoption without any legal representation as he couldn’t afford legal fees.

Each of these stories demonstrates the commitment of the profession to give ?back to their community ?by volunteering their ?professional skills. 

Pro bono work has not been without its controversies. There continues to be ongoing debate around quality assurance issues and the role lawyers can and should take in areas beyond their own professional legal expertise. There is also a regional disparity in the amount of pro bono work that is carried out, not least because there is a density disparity in the number of lawyers that live and work in each region. 

As yet, there is no centralised system for pro bono, and facilities available vary greatly across the country. While Law Centres and Citizens Advice Bureaux continue to act as ?the focus for much domestic ?pro bono activity, the decline ?in their funding at local ?levels has seen restrictions ?in resources given to ?supporting pro bono projects. 

LawWorks, the country’s leading solicitors’ pro bono charity supported by the Law Society, has seen a growth of 25 per cent in the number of pro bono drop-in clinics they have in their network across England and Wales. These clinics are often based in law schools and law students provide much of the backbone to the pro bono provision that is carried out. 

On 2–6 November 2015, lawyers across England and Wales will be marking the 14th National Pro Bono Week. They will be putting on events which reflect the diversity of pro bono work carried out by the profession and celebrating the roles of the third sector, students and the industry in helping to support access to justice for all. 

Rebecca Wilkinson is the pro bono and public legal education policy officer at the Law Society @TheLawSociety www.lawsociety.org.uk