Last night's London Legal Walk has raised a record £575,000 for charities that provide free legal advice in London and the South East.
Over 7,500 lawyers signed up to the 10km sponsored walk in aid of the free legal advice sector, which has been hit hard by recent reductions in council funding as well as the £220m legal aid cuts announced in April this year.
The route took walkers past some of London's legal landmarks, including the Royal Courts of Justice, the Law Society and Middle Temple as well as the green spaces of St James Park and Hyde Park.
The London Legal Walk is the largest of many legal walks taking place across the country, attracting the support and participation of senior judges, lawyers and politicians, including the Lord Chief Justice, the president of the Supreme Court, the master of the rolls, the attorney general and the director of public prosecutions.
They were joined by GB Olympic champion Katherine Grainger CBE, who took part in the King's College London Dickson Poon School of Law team.
Bob Nightingale, chief executive of the London Legal Support Trust, said:
'Obviously we can't overcome the vast reduction in funding for advice centres that has occurred in recent years simply through fundraising. However, what we can and have done is to ensure that thousands of the most vulnerable people in and around London will gain vital help that they would otherwise have been denied.
'While 7,500 walked, tens of thousands of lawyers have donated to the walk and that is a tremendous response from the legal profession to the plight of those who cannot afford to pay for legal help.'
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Notes to editors
1. For media queries, please contact Emma Alatalo at the Law Society Press Office on 0207 316 5592 or emma.alatalo@lawsociety.org.uk or contact Natalia Rymaszewska at the London Legal Support Trust on 0207 092 3972 or natalia@llst.org.uk.
2. The London Legal Walk is organised by the London Legal Support Trust (LLST) and sponsored by the Law Society.