Part one: planning developing and maintaining a programme

The joint pro bono protocol

The joint pro bono protocol (the protocol) is a key pro bono definition relevant to firms in the UK.

It was developed under the support of the attorney general’s Pro Bono Coordinating Committee and has been endorsed by the Law Society of England and Wales, the Bar Council of England and Wales and the Chartered Institute of Legal Executives.

The protocol was developed to promote and support consistently high standards of pro bono work.

The protocol in no way replaces, but rather builds on, the Professional Codes of Conduct that set out the standards and requirements that all solicitors must achieve and observe.

The protocol emphasises that “[a] commitment to the delivery of pro bono work is encouraged throughout a lawyer’s professional life, as a student and in practice, through to and including retirement”.

The protocol is set out in full in appendix A.

The protocol provides a definition of pro bono legal work as follows.

• Legal advice or representation provided by lawyers in the public interest including to individuals, charities and community groups who cannot afford to pay for that advice or representation and where public and alternative means of funding are not available.
• Legal work is pro bono legal work only if it is free to the client, without payment to the lawyer or law firm (regardless of the outcome) and provided voluntarily either by the lawyer or his or her firm.
• Pro bono legal work is always only an adjunct to, and not a substitute for, a proper system of publicly funded legal services.

The following sections from the Protocol further relevantly provides that:

• the availability of appropriate publicly funded legal advice or representation and opportunities for alternative funding should always be considered before a lawyer undertakes pro bono legal work
• pro bono legal work should only be undertaken by a lawyer who is adequately trained, has appropriate knowledge, skills and experience and, where necessary, is adequately supervised for the work in question
• the lawyer undertaking a piece of legal pro bono work (and where appropriate his or her supervisor) should have no less than the minimum level of legal expertise and experience as would be required if the work in question was paid work

It was agreed at a Law Society pro bono roundtable on 6 March 2024 and at an attorney general's pro bono committee meeting on 16 October 2024 that legal research and legal training, although not expressly stated in the joint pro bono protocol, would count as pro bono work under the protocol.

Specific criteria for the firm's pro bono work

Criteria or guidelines as to what work will be taken on under the firm’s pro bono programme, on what basis and for which clients, enable the firm to decide in advance on the nature of its programme.

Having established criteria means that decisions are more likely to be fair and defensible and will help referring agencies know when a referral is likely to be accepted by a firm.

When setting specific criteria or parameters, a firm may either wish to make satisfaction of all criteria mandatory or indicate they are ‘preferable’ matters to be taken into account.

Firms should consider developing criteria to deal with the following matters.

The nature of the work

Firms should determine the nature of the pro bono work they are prepared to undertake.

Firms that run pro bono litigation will often require that the case has reasonable prospects of success and has manageable deadlines.

In addition to 'legal advice and assistance', most pro bono definitions refer to 'law reform', 'policy work' and 'community legal education'. This includes:

• research and submission writing
• conducting educational seminars
• preparing fact sheets and other legal information for advice agencies

As well as assisting the community, this work can be enormously satisfying and offer opportunities for solicitors in all areas within the firm to do pro bono work.

In practice, firms tend to undertake these activities in conjunction with partner organisations or charities.

Work may be done within the firm and externally (for example, secondments).

Firms should also consider whether their pro bono programme should include assistance in the form of secondments and/or in-kind assistance.

Expertise

A pro bono policy may also set out areas of law in which the firm will not act. These are usually based on the areas of law in which the firm does not have expertise.

A requirement that the firm accepts only matters in which it has appropriate expertise is often included as a separate criterion.

Ideally, firms’ lists of the type of work they will and will not do should be developed with the benefit of input from referral sources.

For example, a firm might decide that while it will not generally accept immigration referrals, it will acquire the necessary expertise to assist with nationality applications because of a particular need and the availability of suitable training and/or supervision from an external partner.

Many firms accept any meritorious pro bono casework in relation to which they have expertise. Some give priority to targeted areas and some restrict their casework to public interest matters.

'Public interest' is generally used to describe legal work that is intended to advance the interests of a broader group rather than an individual client, for matters that:

• affect a significant number of people
• raise matters of broad public concern
• impact on disadvantaged or marginalised groups

Public interest test cases may give firms the chance to contribute to the development of the law and apply their expertise and resources to an area of law where a real difference can be made.

Client criteria

Other than for some public interest matters, firms and pro bono referral schemes and organisations consider the financial means of the client and usually take into account whether there is any other assistance available. This includes:

• legal aid funding
• legal expenses insurance, or
• advice from a private firm or ABS under a contingency fee agreement

Firms may seek to target assistance to groups of people who disproportionately experience disadvantage or an unmet legal need.

Given the difficulties of applying a strict means test, firms generally do not fix a cut-off at an income or asset amount, as ability to pay varies depending on factors including number of dependants, liquidity of assets and debt level.

Where the pro bono clients are not-for-profit organisations, a ‘capacity to pay’ means test may be applied. This needs to be understood within the context that funds expended for legal services are funds that are no longer available for the organisation’s core work.

Where the pro bono clients include social enterprises, you may wish to define this category to ensure that the social mission of the enterprise is core rather than incidental to the enterprise, and to include a criterion that the social enterprise re-invest all or a majority of their profits back into the social enterprise.

For firms with offices in other countries, it may be worth noting that the definition of qualifying pro bono work in other jurisdictions – for example in the US – could be different or more nuanced.

Firm related criteria

Other criteria that firms may wish to consider, or include elsewhere in their pro bono policy, are:

• capacity of the firm:
  • conflicts of interest (whether there is an actual or potential conflict of interest)
  • firm resources (what resources will be required and does the firm have available resources?)
  • expertise (are there people within the firm with sufficient expertise?)
• staff development (does the matter afford opportunities for training or education?)
• community profile (does the matter allow the firm to develop its community profile?)
• opportunities to partner with commercial clients on a pro bono matter

In house teams

In 2024, the Law Society published the Pro Bono Guide for In-House Solicitors.

The guide recognises that given the make-up of in-house teams, pro bono work as defined in the Joint Pro Bono Protocol may make up only one part of the broader CSR work such teams undertake.

Students

Since the implementation of the Solicitors Qualifying Exam, students undertaking pro bono work which meets the protocol definition are deemed to be undertaking qualifying work experience.

This means that pro bono work, such as legal volunteering at a law centre, counts towards a student’s two-year (or part-time equivalent) period of required training ahead of qualification

If a candidate produces evidence of QWE undertaken that meets the above criteria, the solicitor or Compliance Officer for Legal Practice (COLP) must confirm the QWE.

The solicitor or COLP does not have to decide whether the individual has met the prescribed standard required for admission as a solicitor as competence at the appropriate standard is assessed through the SQE1 and SQE2 assessments.

International definitions

TrustLaw

The Thomson Reuters Foundation launched the TrustLaw Index of Pro Bono in 2014 (the index).

The purpose of the index is to analyse international pro bono data and trends.

In 2016, the index was compiled using data collected from over 130 law firms – both large and small – representing 64,500 lawyers in 75 countries.

In collecting data as part of the index, TrustLaw defines pro bono work as:

“legal assistance provided by legal professionals without expectation of payment to people of limited means or to organisations that have a social, environmental, humanitarian, cultural or community focus (including certain government agencies and entities where the payment of fees would be a significant barrier for them to receive the advice).”

In order for pro bono work to be treated as qualifying pro bono within the definition, the work must be considered to be “qualifying work done by qualifying fee-earners for qualifying clients.”

TrustLaw has provided detailed guidelines on each of these criteria

In summary:

• any legal professional who performs fee-earning work for clients can be considered a qualifying fee earner
• legal advice, assistance, representation and research, as well as drafting agreements, policy documents or legislative instruments, are all examples of qualifying work
• people of limited means or organisations that have a social, environmental, humanitarian, cultural or community focus, as validated by the law firm, referral organisations or pro bono organisations, can all be considered qualifying clients 

Other definitions

Other definitions which international firms may want to be aware of include:

• the Pro Bono Institute’s definition (used for its Law Firm Pro Bono Challenge)
• the American Bar Association guidance (on Model Rule 6.1)
• the Law Council of Australia
• Pro Bono Declaration of the Americas
• the Association of Pro Bono Counsel's Statement on the Eligibility of Non-Profit Entities, For-Profit Entities, Social Enterprise Entities and Impact Finance Transactions for Pro Bono Legal Service

Why firms should have a plan for pro bono work

Properly designing, structuring and coordinating a firm’s pro bono programme significantly enhances the firm’s ability to:

• demonstrate its level of commitment to pro bono work
• track and record pro bono work and consequently measure internal benefits, client outcomes and costs
• undertake pro bono work on a planned, rather than reactive basis
• nurture a firm-wide culture within a coherent policy
• provide opportunities for a greater number of solicitors within the firm, including among groups whose commercial skills would not usually be associated with pro bono work
• disseminate knowledge about pro-bono – some solicitors within the firm may not know this is something they can and should get involved in
• provide a greater variety of pro bono work
• engage in better supervision and quality control of pro bono work carried out within the firm
• provide valuable opportunities for training and experience to solicitors
• target resources to maximise outcomes
• upscale resources by cooperating with others
• send a consistent message about its values

Our top five tips for developing a pro bono strategy, developed by a pro bono manager:

1. ask your managing partner or another senior partner to be the designated (but not the only) voice and champion of pro bono work
2. set some clear targets – start small and think big
3. set up pro bono matter codes as you would for any other client work
4. find out which causes or social issues your staff care about
5. ensure that pro bono work is facilitated and managed centrally by an individual or a committee

Planning checklist

Firms in the process of planning their pro bono programmes might consider taking the following steps:

• survey the firm’s current pro bono work and consult with partners, solicitors and other staff to formulate and strengthen support for the programme
• consider ways to promote a pro bono culture and encourage pro bono work in the firm
• define pro bono for the purposes of the firm’s programme
• develop a pro bono policy or strategic plan which outlines the firm’s pro bono focus and goals
• identify the way(s) in which the firm plans to provide pro bono legal services
• survey existing advice provision in the legal community (whether provided by other firms, ABSs, law centres or other advice agencies) to find opportunities to collaborate and to avoid duplication
• set a target for the pro bono work the firm seeks to undertake and a budget for the operational expenses of the pro bono programme
• determine processes for supervising and administering the programme
• consider unmet legal needs and identify sources of work as part of building a sustainable pro bono programme
• identify possible pro bono work and projects for different teams within the firm, including transactional (non-litigation) work, public legal education and law reform work
• consider acquiring expertise in particular areas of unmet legal need
• determine how pro bono work will be credited and recognised within the firm
• determine procedures for matter placement and file management 
• create mechanisms to ensure communication within the firm regarding pro bono work
• make arrangements for periodic evaluation and review

The business case

The primary goal of pro bono is to enable access to justice.

Beyond being ‘the right thing to do', there are many benefits of pro bono to the firm, including:

• recruitment
• retention
• training
• skill development
• collegiality
• public relations
• pride in the workplace, and
• the opportunity for solicitors to take on greater responsibilities at an earlier stage in their careers (especially for larger firms)

While some of these qualities might be hard to quantify, there is no question that a robust pro bono programme is a sign of a law firm’s strength.

It reflects the commitment of the firm to its employees, its community, the rule of law and it justifiably boosts the institution’s reputation for hard work and creativity.

Pride and loyalty

Pro bono can increase job satisfaction. Many solicitors benefit from the opportunity to support vulnerable people by using their skills as a solicitor and take great pride in the work that they do.

Anecdotally, many firms have seen retention rates increase specifically for solicitors who spend time on pro bono work compared to those who do not.

Pro bono helps increase satisfaction levels, boosts morale and helps solicitors develop deeper and stronger relationships with colleagues.

Leadership and skills development

Pro bono work allows solicitors to develop their legal, managerial and leadership skills which they can use to deliver an even better service to commercial clients.

The personal and professional development benefits for solicitors can be just as significant as their altruistic motives, particularly for junior solicitors.

Because many pro bono matters are small and discrete, junior solicitors conducting pro bono matters often have greater control of a whole matter than they do when working on commercial matters.

This demonstrates the need for a prominent reminder about making arrangements for adequate supervision, particularly of junior solicitors or trainees doing pro bono work.

The solicitor therefore can develop strategy and maintain an overview of the whole case.

Most pro bono clients have different needs from commercial clients and as a result, solicitors are required to broaden their communication and inter-personal skills.

Some pro bono matters also offer opportunities for solicitors to develop their advocacy skills.

Taking the lead on a pro bono project can also help more junior lawyers raise their own profile within a firm and build connections across practice groups and offices, which enhances their own personal career development.

Graduate recruitment

In an increasingly competitive graduate recruitment market – and with many firms having similar starting salaries and benefit packages – pro bono can help your firm stand out from its competitors and recruit the future stars of tomorrow.

New graduates expect much more than just a healthy remuneration package and good career prospects. Many law firms report that students being interviewed for vacation schemes ask detailed questions about their firm’s pro bono programme and the opportunities available to them.

For firms that have a graduate recruitment function, we recommend a branded document that you can display at law fairs and presentation events which promotes your pro bono activities.

Many law firms also involve law students in pro bono activities such as legal research tasks or shadowing at legal clinics. Such activities should always be properly supervised and authorised by the law firm and the pro bono client.

Branding and collaborating with clients

Firms with an established pro bono programme often use this as an important part of the way they define and present themselves externally.

It can be a key point of differentiation in the market, of interest to potential clients, and it can enable the firm to strengthen relationships with existing clients.

Joining forces with clients on pro bono activities can create a powerful combination of skills which can benefit the community while simultaneously developing much more meaningful client relationships.

There may be scope for a firm’s pro bono programme to complement a client’s CSR strategy. For example, the firm could add a legal component to a particular charity project of the client.

Many law firms report that the tender documents they receive from clients, particularly in the public sector, when pitching for new work now ask for detailed information and statistics about their pro bono and commitment to wider CSR activities.

Under Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) guidelines, in-house solicitors are prohibited from acting for clients other than their employer unless there is sufficient professional indemnity insurance (PII) in place. These restrictions are the subject of SRA consultations and may be reviewed. 

This offers law firms the opportunity to collaborate with in-house solicitors under the auspices of the law firm’s PII. In such instances, the law firm’s compliance officer or other such nominated individual should be fully aware of this activity.

There are exceptions and forms of legal advice which are completely off limits for in-house solicitors.

Explore our practice note: In-house practice: regulatory requirements.

Responding to concerns about pro bono

Engaging in pro bono practice can raise concerns.

Identifying these and developing responses is likely to lead to a more active and supported pro bono practice.

Financial productivity

There may be a concern that pro bono detracts from the firm’s financial productivity.

While pro bono hours do not result in direct financial return to the firm, pro bono work can reap positive rewards which benefit the bottom line indirectly through the positive outcomes discussed above including:

• enhancing the attractiveness of the firm for recent graduates and others
• improved staff morale and retention
• attracting commercial clients to the firm
• developing deeper and more meaningful relationships with existing clients
• skills acquisition for staff
• enhancing the firm’s reputation in the community

Firms that have developed significant, structured pro bono practices report that they have received these benefits without any detrimental impact on the firm’s profitability.

The UK's most profitable firms all have structured pro bono practices.

Strategies for overcoming concerns about financial productivity include:

• clearly articulating to the firm’s leadership the benefits of pro bono
• structuring and promoting the firm’s pro bono programme in ways most likely to result in accrual of these benefits, including regular internal reporting and recognition of pro bono effort and recording in accounts systems time spent on pro bono work
• incorporating evaluation strategies for pro bono programmes that seek to measure the accrual of benefits to the firm
• setting a budget and clear selection criteria for pro bono so that those with concerns can see that the firm’s contribution is set at a particular level and is not open-ended and is undertaken according to agreed criteria
• creating systems to anticipate, monitor and review time and resources spent on pro bono to ensure efficient allocation of resources

Time and recognition

Some solicitors may be concerned that they do not have the time to do pro bono work or that it will not assist them in relation to their reputation, remuneration or advancement in the firm.

Strategies for overcoming these concerns include:

• a clearly articulated and communicated commitment to pro bono with frequent references to the pro bono policy, complemented by visible senior partner and managing partner involvement and support, an active pro bono committee and publicised pro bono opportunities in the firm
• treating pro bono hours as billable hours or, failing that, as significant non-billable hours that are expected, or taken into account for the purposes of the appraisal process and subsequent discussions around bonuses and salary review
• ensuring that pro bono work is addressed in performance reviews and evaluations of solicitors (including partner self-assessments or other processes of review) and that all in the firm are aware of this
• setting pro bono targets for individuals and/or groups or departments in the firm and for the firm as a whole
• employing additional means of recognising and rewarding individual’s and/or group’s pro bono efforts, such as through firms’ newsletters, emails, reports, seminars, lunches or dinners and internal awards

Skills and experience

Some solicitors may be concerned that they lack the skills and experience to do pro bono work.

Strategies to address this include:

• identifying and sourcing work and publicising pro bono opportunities suitable for different teams or departments within the firm within their areas of expertise
• identifying and sourcing suitable external supervision for projects not within the firm's areas of expertise. This can be an effective way to assist organisations in areas that are underfunded and stretched (e.g. housing, asylum and immigration, welfare benefits). This approach can provide solicitors the opportunity to assist such organisations to increase their capacity by taking on less complex, but vitally important work
• surveying solicitors in the firm about their areas of interest and their skills and organising partnering or mentoring on particular cases or projects (firms might be surprised at the wealth of experience and ability that already exists)
• encouraging solicitors to bring potential pro bono matters or projects to the attention of the firm’s pro bono committee (or other approval mechanism) whether or not they have the expertise to handle the matter themselves, then exploring whether they could acquire the necessary expertise, or work on the matter together with someone in the firm who has the necessary expertise
• providing or organising training for solicitors to undertake particular kinds of cases or types of pro bono activity. Organisations such as LawWorks can help with this

LawWorks is the operating name for the Solicitors Pro Bono Group.

The charity is supported by us (financially and in-kind) and by over 100 members, including international and City firms, regional, medium and small firms, and in-house solicitors and organisations.

LawWorks members have access to its Not-for-Profit programme.

This programme supports and connects smaller charities needing free legal advice with pro bono volunteers.

LawWorks supports a network of local independent pro bono clinics (and can help establish new clinics and local pro bono projects).

It is free for clinics to join the LawWorks network.

This includes access to free legal resources, training and online materials.

Legal and/or commercial conflicts

There may be a concern that undertaking pro bono work might create legal and/or conflicts with existing clients or prejudice the firm in obtaining new work.

As stated in other sections of this manual, all pro bono work must be treated with the same level of care and professionalism as billable work, both in terms of due diligence, supervision and service delivery.

Strategies to deal with this include:

• avoiding direct legal conflicts of interest by carrying out the usual conflicts checks before accepting any new pro bono matter
• recognising that conflicts of interest arise on a case-by-case basis and ensuring that systems are in place to identify and deal with them as they arise
• staying informed of global political and economic developments that could affect your practice and develop a strong working relationship with your firm’s general counsel, risk, conflicts and business intake teams, so that you understand the firm’s approach
• developing links with other firms with pro bono practices with a view to referring pro bono matters that one firm is unable to undertake because of a conflict. The collaborative plan is frequently used to share pro bono opportunities that firms are unable to take on themselves
• being up front and transparent with pro bono clients about your need to carry out conflict checks and keeping the communication clear during this process so that they do not assume work is commencing

Where a matter is perceived to constitute a commercial conflict, a firm may decide nonetheless to give some general advice about the issues to the client or referring organisation or undertake research into particular areas relevant to the issues.

Where appropriate, a firm could contact the relevant client with whom a commercial conflict is being assessed and discuss the perceived conflict with a view to obtaining consent from that client to proceed with the matter.

Building a pro bono culture

There are many ways to promote and celebrate pro bono activities in your firm.

Below are some suggestions. Some are particularly relevant to the start-up phase of a programme, others to building, maintaining and developing the programme over time.

What do other firms do and what’s already being done at yours?

For firms at the very start of your pro bono journey, you might consider the following:

• find out what other firms of a similar size or position are doing – look at their websites and/or speak to contacts who work at those firms
• consider surveys such as the TrustLaw Index
• gauge the level of interest and support within all levels of your firm, particularly at partnership level 
• survey people in your firm to find out their interests, expertise and contacts 
• Join peer groups like the UK Collaborative Plan for Pro Bono, which provides support, advice and mentoring to firms and pro bono leads
• identify key individuals in your firm who will assist in promoting pro bono within the firm
• contact pro bono organisations like LawWorks or peer groups like Advocates for International Development (A4ID) for initial advice or guidance

Senior buy-in and support

Successful pro bono programmes require consistent support from senior management.

Many firms select a partner who acts as a champion for their pro bono programme. Partners can also demonstrate their support in other ways such as:

• being involved in drafting and/or settling the firm’s pro bono policy or otherwise actively endorsing that policy
• participating on a pro bono committee
• meeting to discuss pro bono activity
• hands-on involvement in pro bono work
• encouraging solicitors in their group or department to undertake pro bono work
• sharing pro bono successes and the impact they have internally with colleagues and externally on social media

Clear commitments, goals and expectations

There are many ways a firm can cement its commitment to pro bono and ensure that all solicitors are aware of its importance. These include:

• treating pro bono work as billable work or otherwise recognising it in the appraisal process and compensation discussions
• keeping colleagues informed and up to date about pro bono opportunities and activities
• developing a pro bono policy
• integrating pro bono within other business activities of the firm, for example, learning and development, graduate recruitment or business development
• describing the firm’s pro bono commitment on its website and in other external and internal publications

Structures, policies and procedures

Appointing pro bono leads, committees and creating positions such as pro bono partners and coordinators sends clear signals to colleagues and the outside world, that the firm is serious about pro bono, as well as providing practical mechanisms for administering activities.

Committee structures also allow a range of people to get involved in planning and overseeing the firm’s programme and broaden the sense of ownership.

Developing a pro bono policy reinforces the firm’s commitment as well as providing a structure for the programme. Wide involvement in the development of the policy is desirable.

The policy should be widely and regularly circulated and interested parties encouraged to give feedback.

Effective internal communications

Effective internal communications are crucial to building a pro bono culture. This can be done in a myriad of ways depending on the shape or size of your firm.

It’s important to celebrate, recognise and reward individuals in your firm who participate in pro bono work. This can help recruit more volunteers, drive up engagement levels and, over the long-term, help pro bono become part of the fabric of your firm.

One of the most effective means of encouraging pro bono work is to recognise it.

The seriousness of a firm’s commitment to pro bono is reflected in its policy on counting pro bono for the purposes of productivity, evaluation, compensation and advancement within the firm. Volunteers will most readily be forthcoming if their pro bono work is recognised by the firm for all of these purposes.

Many firms with an established pro bono practice count and credit pro bono work towards billable hours, and solicitors are appraised on the work done in pro bono matters, as they would be on other client work.

Some firms are using other means of ensuring that solicitors are given both budgetary and performance recognition for their pro bono work.

Your firm’s pro bono policy should make clear how the firm will count and credit time.

There are additional methods of recognising pro bono work. These include:

• reporting internally on participation in pro bono, thanking named participants and briefly describing matters undertaken and clients assisted
• holding annual lunches, dinners or other functions to celebrate the firm’s pro bono work and to thank participants
• organising a firm’s internal pro bono awards event
• inviting participants in the programme to give presentations at firm seminars
• producing pro bono annual reports
• giving priority to pro bono participants when deciding who should attend certain conferences and events
• formally acknowledging and rewarding pro bono effort
• participating in UK Pro Bono Week

A firm’s ability to implement these methods will vary depending on the size of the firm and the resources available to them.

Often smaller firms will use existing acknowledgement structures and incorporate a pro bono element.

Promoting pro bono work in your firm

To help drive engagement levels and involve solicitors from all corners of the firm, promote pro bono opportunities on a regular basis.

Particular strategies might, depending upon the size of the firm, include:

• providing a variety of work to suit the interests and capabilities of solicitors
• ensuring that appropriate support and supervision is provided
• integrating pro bono in regular firm communications and at firm functions, partners’ retreats and team meetings
• including pro bono in the induction process for new joiners
• building pro bono into regular department or practice group meetings, so that it becomes a regular part of their reporting
• organising associates, partners and others to give case presentations on pro bono matters at practice group or departmental meetings and provide information on how others can become involved
• providing regular opportunities for people in the firm to express interest in being involved in the programme for example, through emails seeking volunteers for particular cases or projects, surveys of areas of interest and expertise, pro bono newsletters detailing work being carried out in the firm, or including this information in the firm’s regular newsletter or business updates
• appointing a pro bono partner in each department or group as the contact person for the pro bono coordinator or committee to talk about pro bono work in that department
• approaching individuals and their supervising partners in relation to taking on particular matters or other work
• informing the firm’s non-legal staff (including library, reception, secretarial, human resources and other business professional staff) about the firm’s programme and procedures for taking on pro bono (among other things, these people may be approached by others inquiring how they can become involved in the firm’s pro bono work)
• organising lunchtime seminars on the firm’s pro bono work or particular areas of interest

Mapping key stakeholders

When planning any pro bono initiative, it is helpful to consult widely with subject matter experts.

Typically, the range of stakeholders will include some or all of the following, depending on the size and location of the law firm:

• pro bono clearing houses, such as LawWorks or TrustLaw
• professional associations such as the Law Society or the Association of Pro Bono Counsel
• front line legal service providers, university law clinics or charities
• other law firms (particularly those with strong, mature pro bono practices) through either the pro bono director or manager or through the Collaborative Plan for Pro Bono
• internal stakeholders including law firm management and the fee earner community
• rights-holders, sometimes referred to as 'end-users' in order to better understand the clients’ needs

Effective engagement with external stakeholders

When speaking with stakeholders external to the firm, gather intelligence that can be used to inform your own planning.

You should keep an open mind about the types of pro bono work you might pursue and be guided by evidence of demand in the community.

Organisations such as LawWorks exist to support law firms in the development of pro bono initiatives. They can direct you to areas of legal need suitable for pro bono.

Other law firms will be able to provide insights into what works well. Some firms will have pro bono projects that may be suitable for collaboration.

When starting out, it is may be helpful to consider joining an established, successful pro bono initiative, rather than building something new.

Law Centres, Citizens Advice and other front-line service providers can be good sources of knowledge, and potential project partners.

Be considerate in the way you engage with any organisation whose primary mission is to support vulnerable people, as these organisations will have limited resources to support you at this information gathering stage.

In your consultations:

• identify key areas of unmet legal need and try to gain a thorough understanding of the issues involved
• how people’s lives are impacted
• what level of intervention is required to achieve a successful result for the client, and
• the level of anticipated demand during the first 12 months

Also build your understanding of the key organisations working in the space and the types of assistance already available to ensure you are not duplicating any existing service, such as legal aid.

You should also seek to understand the nature of the legal work that your lawyers will be doing. How long will a matter take, what are the steps and the costs involved?

Consider whether pro bono lawyers will require some additional training or supervision by a person with experience in the area, and where those skills can be found, and at what cost.

It is good practice to also engage rights-holders (sometimes referred to as 'end-users') in your planning. They are a key stakeholder group.

By consulting with people who are personally affected by a particular issue or who have been through a particular legal process you can gain many valuable insights.

Effective engagement with internal stakeholders

To the extent you are able, you should draw on the specialist expertise that exists in your firm.

It may be that your firm employs lawyers who have experience working in the legal sector or acting as a trustee of a Law Centre.

To engage with the general population of lawyers within your firm, you may find it useful to issue a survey.

It’s important to keep the survey short, sharp and concise.

Only ask questions which are relevant, within the knowledge of the fee-earner community and can help you get the information that’s required.

You can use one of the many online survey providers which are generally free and simple to use.

If you are at the start of setting up a pro bono programme, you should aim to find out:

• what pro bono work is already being done
• what barriers, if any, prevent or frustrate participation in pro bono
• what has worked well and what has not worked well in the past
• whether there are particular models of pro bono that are preferred and why

If you have completed your external stakeholder engagement process and you have a list of project proposals or live opportunities, you may wish to use the survey to gauge interest in or establish rosters for particular projects.

Earlier versions of this manual have suggested surveying staff to ascertain whether they are interested in or willing to participate in pro bono.

It is worth noting that data published by AmLaw and the Collaborative Plan for Pro Bono show many large law firms have achieved pro bono participation rates of 80-100% on a consistent basis over several years.

Evidence suggests the key factors influencing participation in pro bono are:

• the availability of pro bono opportunities
• the number of pro bono requests received by each individual lawyer, and
• the ability of the employer to identify and remove the structural barriers to pro bono

As such, it may be more fruitful to adopt a ‘systems perspective’. Assume a potential participation rate of 100% and focus the survey on identifying the enabling factors.

While lawyers’ personal passions and interests can provide ideas for pro bono initiatives, it can often be the case that a pro bono project inspires that passion, rather than the other way round.

Passion for a particular issue is developed through exposure to that issue, along with the ability to better understand and empathise with the plight of the client.

Most successful pro bono initiatives have been developed because of successful engagement with external stakeholders – experts in legal need in the community.

Over the past five years we’ve seen the establishment of many successful pro bono initiatives in the UK, for example:

• a clinic which supports the children of immigrants to regularise their citizenship status
• a project to support first tier tribunal appeals for families who have been incorrectly denied a Disability Living Allowance
• a project that assists vulnerable tenants to recover their bond on cessation of the lease to combat increasing sharp practices by unscrupulous landlords

Ultimately what lawyers want is to be involved in projects that make a real difference.

For this reason, internal stakeholder engagement should focus on collecting insights on topics that are within the knowledge or expertise of those being surveyed.

Cater for the different preferences of individual lawyers by offering a range of pro bono opportunities with varying themes, time commitments and delivery models.

End-to-end casework

The archetypal form of pro bono legal assistance takes the form of a solicitor or firm accepting instructions to advise or represent an individual who meets the criteria of their pro bono policy.

The only difference between a pro bono engagement and a commercial engagement is that, in the case of a pro bono engagement, the client will not have to pay a fee.

Solicitors and firms can receive cases from several sources:

• pro bono referral schemes, portals and organisations
• their own existing clinics
• Law Centres, Citizens Advice and other local advice organisations
• direct requests
• through personal connections

The archetypal form of pro bono legal assistance takes the form of a solicitor or firm accepting instructions to advise or represent an individual who meets the criteria of their pro bono policy.

The only difference between a pro bono engagement and a commercial engagement is that, in the case of a pro bono engagement, the client will not have to pay a fee.

Solicitors and firms can receive cases from several sources:

• pro bono referral schemes, portals and organisations
• their own existing clinics
• Law Centres, Citizens Advice and other local advice organisations
• direct requests
• through personal connections

Clinics

The clinic model involves pro bono providers partnering with other agencies, and/or law firms, to use their resources to increase their mutual capacity to provide pro bono legal assistance in a particular area of unmet need.

Law firm and in-house pro bono contributions to clinics can take many forms and may involve:

• developing partnerships with organisations that have access to the target client group (and possibly co-location and integration with other essential support services)
• providing staff who have the knowledge and skills to provide legal advice/representation in subject areas where clients have unmet legal needs
• delivering training to develop specialised knowledge and skills to assist clients in the identified area of unmet legal need
• establishing the physical location of a service in a geographically and physically accessible, safe and trusted place
• contributing resources to promote and publicise the service to the relevant client group
• a commitment to contributing resources for a significant period of time to ensure the establishment and effective operation of a sustainable service

There is a diversity of models by which pro bono advice or assistance may be delivered in the clinic context.

Key models include the following.

Clinics with a local legal advice organisation

These clinics are often spearheaded by a local legal advice organisation such as a law centre, Citizens Advice or other advice agency which has identified a need for the provision of pro bono legal services in the area.

Partnerships will often be formed with local solicitors and law firms, who will provide volunteers on a rota basis.

The clinics are usually hosted by the local legal advice organisation where individuals can access the service easily.

Pop-up or outreach clinics

Pop-up or outreach clinics are terms used to describe clinics that involve solicitors providing legal advice, and sometimes ongoing assistance, at locations in the community, rather than from a legal setting such as their own offices.

Providing legal services from locations in the local community makes the service more accessible to those who need to access it.

For example, a clinic aimed at addressing the needs of homeless people is likely to reach more clients if it is based at a homeless shelter, than if it is hosted in a law firm in which its intended clients might not feel comfortable.

Outreach clinics may also be hosted in locations such as libraries, town or village halls and schools.

Remote or virtual clinics

Remote or virtual clinics are where advice is delivered remotely, i.e. online, by phone or by email, rather than face to face.

This model has become increasingly important during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially when all services, communities and workplaces were under ‘lockdown’.

However, the approach also has wider potential for engaging with hard-to-reach groups like dispersed rural communities, or vulnerable people for whom drop in or face to face appointments might be difficult.

As communication technologies and online platforms continue to evolve, there are many more opportunities to extend remote delivery, either as a standalone service or as complementary to face to face clinics.

Nevertheless, it is important to be aware of the limitations also when dealing with client groups who may be digitally excluded, or struggle to access services remotely for other reasons such as sensory impairments.

There are a range of resources on LawWorks website both on operating remote clinics and designing and developing accessible services.

There can be different models of remote clinic.

For example, one model for a telephone clinic could involve clients ringing up and leaving a voicemail with their name and contact details, and a volunteer can then call the client back to triage their legal issue and write up initial case notes, and/or make a further appointment if the query is within the remit of the clinic.

Another model is a video conferencing online face-to-face clinic, with the service delivered based within an advice law firm or law school setting or platform and linking with clients based in their home or assisted by a support agency.

These clinics can overcome some barriers of telephone clinics or location-based clinics and be valuable not only for reaching out to clients but can also increase the range of opportunities available for participation by volunteer solicitors.

Clients and volunteers can share documents on screen, making it easier for multiple volunteers to advise on the same case from separate locations, plus you can record sessions which can be useful for training and quality assurance purposes.

Technology is continuing to open up new ways and models for delivering pro bono; for example, LawWorks ‘Free Legal Answers’ service is a good example of a virtual online clinic.

Law school clinics

Many clinics are run by or in conjunction with university law schools.

In law school clinics, law student volunteers provide advice and/or representation under supervision.

Some law schools will employ qualified solicitors to supervise, and others will work in partnership with law firms and/or individual solicitors to provide supervision.

Partnering with a law school should mean that the capacity of the clinic service is increased.

Student volunteers can fulfil many functions to reduce the input needed by the solicitors freeing them up for substantive advice. For example, by:

• screening initial enquiries and obtaining preliminary information needed for conflict checking
• notetaking
• conducting interviews
• drafting attendance notes
• conducting legal research
• preparing bundles
• representing the client at tribunal, drafting advice

Law school clinics also offer students an invaluable opportunity to experience the law in practice and develop many transferable skills.

There are also benefits for law firms in terms of graduate recruitment, as collaborating with law schools offers firms exposure to potential future trainees.

Many solicitors also find working alongside students and helping them to develop their skills to be extremely rewarding.

There are many different models of law school clinics. Some examples include:

• appointment-only advice clinics where clients attend a prearranged interview with the students and subsequently receive a substantive letter of advice
• drop-in clinics where clients are provided with immediate advice and/or assistance with letter writing and form filling
• telephone, Microsoft Teams or Skype clinics, which allow supervising solicitors to dial-in remotely to supervise client appointments

Law school clinics could be held at the university, at the supervising law firm or at a pop-up or outreach location.

University law schools also engage in many of the other models of pro bono work outlined elsewhere in this chapter, such as offering secondments to community legal organisations and engaging in public legal education.

Assistance for not-for-profit organisations

By providing legal assistance to charities, voluntary organisations, social enterprises and other not-for-profit organisations (NFPs) on a pro bono basis, pro bono providers allow these organisations to devote their limited resources to their core objectives, rather than diverting them towards paying for legal services.

An NFP could be entering a contract that will be income generating and some may argue that this means there are funds available for legal fees/a legal budget should be considered.

However, by removing the need to pay for legal advice in relation to a particular project more of the funds generated by it are available to invest towards the NFP’s objectives.

There is often a natural match between the skills of commercial firms and the areas of law in which NFPs require assistance. For example, governance, employment, property, commercial agreements, disputes, and incorporations.

Pro bono providers may also provide training to NFPs on legal issues affecting them.

This kind of pro bono work is often of wide appeal to volunteers because of the breadth of social, health, and environmental issues they can choose to support locally, nationally and internationally by using their legal skills.

There is also scope for solicitors to provide longer-term assistance to NFPs, both pro bono and non-legal. For example, this might involve mentoring schemes, arrangements to be a first port of call for initial steers on legal issues, and/or granting access to precedent banks.

An area where longer term assistance may also help to address unmet legal need is with support to regional advice agencies and services, for example a firm may provide longer term assistance to its local law centre.

Some pro bono providers identify a need for more holistic support and complement their assistance to NFPs to include help from their secretarial, HR, and business services departments too.

LawWorks provide a specific brokerage service for firms interested in providing legal assistance to charities.

Secondments to legal advice organisations

Secondments increase the capacity of a legal advice organisation to undertake legal work, and therefore address unmet legal need, by providing an additional staff member for a specific period or purpose.

Secondments can offer benefits to the local community, legal advice organisation and participating law firm, although the time and resource implications make this a less common option for many firms.

Technology based services

There are growing opportunities to use the following types of technology, either alone or in combination, to deliver pro bono legal services:

• telephone
• video conferencing
• websites, for example connecting individuals with solicitors and/or barristers, as well as websites giving step-by-step guidance on legal issues
• email

The use of telephone and online video conferencing facilities has two main purposes:

• it frees up the solicitor’s time in travelling to advice agencies so that they can remain at their workplace desk and deliver advice to a client either, and usually, based in an advice centre or at home
• it is viewed as a way to address unmet legal need that is exacerbated by the lack of physically available or accessible services (for example, where a service is geographically inaccessible to people living in rural areas, or where a client has limited mobility). In addition, there may also be some client groups who are nervous about attending an advice agency in person and who would have a better experience accessing advice online

An inherent challenge in the provision of pro bono legal services using technology is the limited access that clients or advice agencies might have to the requisite facilities, together with the need for clients and advice agency staff to be familiar with and/or comfortable using the associated technologies (for example, computers and video-conferencing systems).

For this reason, the idea of assisted digital has gained currency, where a family member, friend or lay volunteer helps clients to access online resources.

Pro Bono Connect

Pro Bono Connect is a scheme supported by LawWorks which matches solicitors and barristers acting pro bono on civil matters for individuals, charities and community groups who cannot afford legal advice or representation.

The scheme, which is free for solicitors and barristers to join, enables lawyers to submit a request for relevant assistance on a case from the other branch of the legal profession.

Pro Bono Connect then seeks to match the request for assistance with a member firm or barrister, as appropriate.

For more information please contact probonoconnect@lawworks.org.uk or visit the Pro Bono Connect website.

Free Legal Answers

Free Legal Answers is a website developed by LawWorks and Deloitte UK, supported by the American Bar Association (ABA), which provides pro bono legal advice for individuals.

Individuals register for the site and can ask (by using the online form) up to four questions a year.

As the service is for people who are unable to afford to pay for legal advice, it is only available for people on low incomes.

The participating lawyers can preview the questions and then sort them by legal topic.

The website enables the lawyer to contact the client to ask for further information, and documents and photographs can be exchanged.

The legal advice provided is sent directly to the client from participating lawyers who can respond to questions at any time and from any location.

Co-counselling

In this model, firms and legal advice organisations work together to undertake public interest litigation either for an individual client or as a law reform initiative.

Typically, the organisation may have an in-house legal team undertaking initial work establishing the merits of the case or issue and maintaining the client relationship.

The firm may then give written advice, do background research and draft court documents as required. The firm or the legal advice organisation may be on the record.

The key benefit of a co-counselling arrangement is that the law firm increases the capacity of the legal advice organisation to undertake public interest litigation or law reform.

However, sometimes it is challenging having two sets of solicitors involved in the work and decision making process, particularly if they have conflicting views.

It is essential to be clear with the client (and in the engagement terms) about who is responsible – and potentially liable – for what.

Law reform and policy work

This model aims to address unmet legal need by directing pro bono resources towards lobbying for change to an aspect of the law or its administration that is a source of injustice, or for the introduction of a new law or policy.

The ways in which pro bono solicitors can use their expertise to assist organisations undertaking public advocacy include:

• engaging in targeted casework and/or strategic litigation to highlight an unjust aspect of the law
• undertaking legal research to provide advice to an organisation on its policy work
• contributing to law reform submissions and proposals with partners (e.g. Law Centres)
• commenting on other proposals (including government proposals)
• responding to consultations
• letter writing
• participating in inquiries and campaigns
• working with pro bono organisations such as LawWorks which provide a “policy voice” and member forums to engage in policy

LawWorks also provide the secretariat to the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Pro Bono and Public Legal Education.

Public legal education

Pro bono providers and pro bono referral schemes and organisations may partner with community organisations to deliver public legal education (PLE).

A public legal education (PLE) vision statement, containing seven goals for PLE, was launched by the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Pro Bono and Public Legal Education in October 2018, and states:

“Our vision is for a country where legal capability is spread throughout our society - where everyone, and every group, is able to identify and act on legal situations when they arise.

"It is a country where no-one, no community, and no section of society is denied justice through ignorance of their legal rights and responsibilities, or of the actions which they can take to protect them.”

PLE can take several forms. For example:

• plain language written materials (often in several different languages)
• website based legal information with step-by-step guides
• interactive Streetlaw presentations delivered primarily by students to a variety of audiences including school children, schools, youth groups, prisoners and homeless people in shelters
• general legal information seminars or webinars
• specific and targeted training to other organisations or individuals

In 2018, the solicitor general’s office worked with stakeholders to produce ‘A Ten Year Vision for Public Legal Education.’

The statement contains seven goals for PLE, and distinguishes between “Just in Case” and “Just in time” PLE.

International pro bono

International pro bono work is generally considered to be legal work that is focused outside of the country where the solicitor is based and/or is admitted to practice.

There are two types of work: for individuals or for organisations. Typically, much of the legal work is carried out in the country where the solicitor is based.

However, given liability/duty of care issues it is common to involve local solicitors.

The same principles tend to apply in relation to legal work done for organisations that operate programmes or have offices/branches in developing countries.

There is a diverse range of international pro bono work. Clients may be individuals, charities, development or aid organisations, other non-government organisations (NGOs) or governments.

Legal work might include:

• training
• preparation of legal information/summaries of legislation
• legal research
• preparation of presentations or other work product
• advising
• negotiation
• drafting and representation
• advocacy

Several international clearing houses have been established to provide readily accessible international pro bono work.

Unmet legal needs

One of the primary aims of providing pro bono legal services is to improve access to justice for individuals experiencing disadvantage.

There is significant evidence of unmet need, including our research with the Legal Services Board.

Pro bono legal services should be regarded as a last resort for people with unmet legal needs who are unable to pay for them and cannot access legal aid or other publicly funded services. 

Pro bono cannot be expected to fill the gap

While acknowledging the contribution of pro bono work, there are limitations on expanding the capacity of such work to make a meaningful impact on the access to justice gap in England and Wales.

In particular, the fact that the services demanded, and the skills needed for effective service delivery to disadvantaged individuals do not necessarily match the skills of all private legal practitioners. This can sometimes be called ‘the pro bono mismatch’.

It must also be acknowledged that there are limits on the levels of pro bono legal services that can be reasonably expected from commercial businesses undertaking pro bono work as a voluntary activity.

Sourcing pro bono work (for individuals)

A firm interested in taking on pro bono work for individuals with legal needs has several options available to source such work. These include:

• joining the LawWorks Clinics Network
• joining the Collaborative Plan
• working with Law Centres, Citizens Advice, and other community and NFP organisations which have regular contact with disadvantaged clients and communities
• encouraging the referral of pro bono matters through contacts of law firm staff
• accepting direct requests for pro bono assistance
• working with international networks such as Pilnet and the network of clearing houses

LawWorks clinics and networks

The LawWorks Clinics Network is an expanding network of over 300 independent clinics across England and Wales which delivers more than 37,000 pieces of advice every year.

The clinics programme provides consultancy and advice to support free legal advice sessions carried out by volunteer solicitors and students.

The programme also helps to set up new, sustainable clinic partnerships between law firms, in-house legal teams, law schools and advice agencies to help address unmet legal need in local communities. 

Working with community organisations

One of the best ways to ascertain where legal assistance is most needed, and to develop an effective response to meeting those needs, is to develop and maintain strong ties with community organisations that have regular contact with the people that a firm’s pro bono practice aims to help.

The following are some examples of strategies that could be employed to source pro bono opportunities, depending on the nature of the practice that a firm wishes to develop:

• target particular client groups and develop ties with relevant community organisations
• provide assistance in a particular geographical area or community and develop links with organisations that provide legal assistance and welfare and advocacy services in that area
• investigate opportunities to establish a programme that focuses on a particular social issue, for example, the legal needs of inner-city homeless youths (such investigation should include consultations with relevant charities and local community organisations)
• explore options for undertaking joint projects with Citizens Advice, Law Centres, or other law firms (for example, sharing a roster for court referrals for pro bono assistance)

Consulting organisations and (where appropriate), individuals with direct experience and knowledge of the issues is a good way for firms to explore the potential for them to focus their pro bono practice on a particular area of law or social issue.

These consultations could explore whether there is a need for a legal response, ways in which the firm could contribute to addressing the need, and how the firm could work effectively with the community to deal with the specific issue.

Some practical tips to assist firms in developing pro bono partnerships with community organisations:

• plan networking opportunities to meet potential partners. This could involve attending conferences, training or meetings and being prepared to talk about what your firm is doing, and hearing about the work other organisations are doing. Local law societies will often run such events during National Pro Bono Week
• be clear about what each partner’s interests and constraints are early in the planning process, particularly conflicts of interest
• discuss and agree on the roles and responsibilities of the partners
• be realistic about the time it takes to coordinate a collaborative project
• where appropriate, formalise discussions about respective roles and responsibilities, for example, in a memorandum of understanding (MOU) covering both the abstract and practical issues including:
  • where does the risk fall and who is responsible for doing the work?
  • what standard documents and processes can be used and who will prepare them?
  • what training is needed and who will provide it?
• where community organisations partner with pro bono providers to deliver legal services to their clients, ensure that clients also understand the arrangement between the partner organisations. For example, who is their point of contact and who specifically is the other party in their solicitor-client agreement?

Receiving direct requests for pro bono assistance

For many firms, receiving requests for assistance directly from members of the public is not an effective way to obtain pro bono work and brings with it the difficulties of controlling the flow of work and assessing an individual’s request.

Given that direct requests are a reactive way of sourcing pro bono work, which relies on people with legal needs actually making requests for assistance, it makes it difficult for firms to be strategic about their pro bono work and to organise and monitor the work their solicitors carry out.

With some exceptions, large and mid-sized firms generally prefer not to have individuals approaching them directly for pro bono assistance.

These firms are more likely to see individual clients at pro bono clinics which are run in partnership with a community organisation (such as a Citizens Advice or law centre).

For some firms a thirty-minute advice slot in the clinic will be the only time they meet with such clients, while other firms run end-to-end pro bono programmes which will take on cases with merit from the clinic and assist the client through the whole legal process.

For small firms and sole practitioners, however, receiving direct requests for pro bono legal assistance is a routine part of operating their practice.

For many, a clear policy on the kinds of matters where they will offer pro bono assistance may be useful to assist staff to screen requests efficiently.

A good knowledge of local pro bono provision will help them to refer on any cases they are unable to assist. 

Sourcing pro bono work (for charities)

Many firms will choose to focus their pro bono work on assisting charities, NGOs and other not-for-profit organisations.

A firm interested in taking on pro bono work in this area has several options available to source such work. These include:

• joining a pro bono referral organisation and/or registering with other pro bono referral schemes
• encouraging the referral of pro bono matters through the formal and informal contacts of law firm staff
• accepting direct requests for pro bono assistance

Pro bono referral schemes and organisations

A pro bono referral scheme or organisation facilitates the efficient provision of pro bono legal services by acting as an intermediary or broker between organisations in need of legal assistance and the solicitors prepared and able to assist.

The various referral organisations and schemes are markedly different in scale and size, and they operate in different ways for different types of organisational clients.

Some, such as LawWorks, work exclusively with domestic organisations, while others, such as A4ID, offer international opportunities.

Some, such as Trustlaw, focus on legal research projects while others, such as iPro Bono, support specific legal cases,

Whilst some schemes broker one-off advice (e.g. LawWorks Honorary Counsel), other schemes aim to establish more long-term relationships.

Some organisations or schemes may require members to pay an annual membership fee, usually based on the size of the law firm, in order to access the opportunities which will usually be based on the size of the law firm.

Sources of work within the firm

In addition to pro bono brokerages, staff in a firm, particularly those with links to community organisations, may be able to make the firm aware of new opportunities to undertake pro bono work.

The firm’s pro bono policy would ideally encourage solicitors to bring to the attention of the appropriate pro bono contact potential matters that may fall within the firm’s guidelines.

The firm would then ensure that the client and matter fall within the remit of the firm's guidelines, experience and expertise.

Some firms have developed an application form for this purpose.

Other firms like to develop their pro bono work in line with their broader CSR strategy, and strategy and will offer pro bono support to their charity of the year, which is usually voted on by staff within the firm.

This model is less common as firm seek to do more pro bono work to target broader access to justice issues.

Pro bono work that comes to the firm via the employee pathway this pathway can help to build support for pro bono within the firm as the staff member bringing the issue or matter to the attention of the firm may be able to act as a champion for the particular cause or for pro bono services generally. 

Receiving direct requests for pro bono work

Many firms accept direct requests for pro bono assistance from charities or not-for-profit organisations. The most important points to consider when accepting direct requests are the following:

• due diligence – as discussed in other sections of this manual, the organisation in question will need to meet your firm’s due diligence checks
• strategy – does the organisation and the work involved further your firm's pro bono strategy?
• themes – is the organisation a good fit for your firm with regards to the work it does, its plans for the future and its reputation in the market?
• expertise – does your firm have the skills and capacity to assist the organisation?

When acting directly for a charity or not-for-profit, the the rule of thumb is to mirror the approach your firm takes to paying clients should mirror pro bono clients (for example, the use of relationship partners, and review meetings).

Many firms have criteria for accepting direct requests, for example some firms may not advise charities with a particularly strong religious or political affiliation.

Other firms will only advise charities up to a certain income threshold. Regardless of your firm’s criteria, it’s important that your pro bono policy reflects some of these considerations and offers clarity on which organisations your firm will and will not advise.

Working in partnership

Other firms

When undertaking work in the context of supporting access to justice, sharing and collaboration between firms is fundamental to ensuring that work is not duplicated, advice is provided where it is needed and collaboration occurs where it can amplify impact.

Working in partnership with another law firm or firms on pro bono projects can have a range of benefits: from sharing training and resources, reducing costs, splitting coordination and administrative time and helping ensure a greater pool of volunteers to provide a more consistent client service.

Collaborating with another firm can be particularly helpful when setting up a new pro bono clinic, expanding a service or dealing with an area of particular need.

Firms with established programmes are generally very happy to help firms starting out in organised pro bono get to grips with the nuts and bolts of how the clinic or project runs and can benefit from fresh thinking of new recruits.

Clear communication is critical to ensuring healthy relationships between firms and partner organisations, and this should include some meetings as well as emails and telephone calls. Firms might consider setting parameters early in a partnership through a memorandum of understanding to ensure that all roles are clear.

Over 80 firms work in partnership on clinics and projects as part of the Collaborative Plan discussed further below.

Local law societies

Some local law societies have established pro bono committees which bring together people from the local area with a particular interest in pro bono.

Membership of pro bono committees will often include solicitors or CSR/pro bono representatives from local law firms, barristers, staff from local university law schools that undertake pro bono work, and representatives from local Law Centres and advice agencies.

The precise purpose or function of each local pro bono committee will vary, but typically they will do one or all of the following:

• signpost members of the public to local sources of free legal advice
• promote pro bono opportunities to local solicitors
• serve as a forum for sharing pro bono best practice
• identify local areas of need
• facilitate dialogue between practising solicitors and the local third sector to ensure pro bono work is targeted to those who need it

Even if your local law society does not have a dedicated pro bono committee, local law society events can often be a good way of meeting others with an interest in pro bono to swap best practice and share ideas informally.

And, of course, if you think a pro bono committee would work well where you are, but you do not have one at present, you can always set one up.

The UK Collaborative Plan

The UK Collaborative Plan (the plan) is a profession-led initiative which involves firms becoming a signatory to the plan.

Each of the 80+ signatories to the plan share an institutional commitment to pro bono as a professional responsibility for all solicitors.

They have developed the plan to improve pro bono service delivery in the UK and believe that by working together they can more effectively promote access to justice.

The plan signatories collaborate with each other to develop the systems and infrastructure to allow pro bono services to be effectively delivered to address unmet legal need.

Plan signatories have an aspirational target of 25 hours per lawyer per year. This is not a requirement, merely agreement that solicitors should do 25 hours pro bono per year.

The plan has five key areas of focus:

• access to justice and legal clinics
• voluntary aspirational pro bono target
• information sharing
• regulatory obstacles
• group expansion

Explore the details of the Collaborative Plan’s commitments and a list of participating firms.

Addressing a mismatch between solicitors’ expertise and pro bono clients’ needs

One commonly identified barrier to the provision of pro bono legal services by commercial firms to individuals is the mismatch that can arise between the existing skills and knowledge of solicitors and those required to effectively address the needs of individual pro bono clients.

These skills and knowledge may be legal and non-legal.

This skills gap has become more pronounced since LASPO came into force which left large areas of legal advice outside the scope of legal aid.

Historically, many commercial firms would have performed pro bono work for charities and NGOs in areas that closely aligned to their commercial areas of practice.

Whilst this is still a key focus of many pro bono programmes in commercial firms, the advice gaps increased by LASPO have highlighted the need for Secondary Specialisations, whereby commercial solicitors develop a further area of specialisation in an aspect of social welfare law.

This chapter notes several approaches to meeting this training need:

• the mismatch might not be so great that it prevents pro bono solicitors from providing effective assistance. Solicitors have a range of generic and specialist skills that can be adapted and built on. Firms can also start from their existing skill base to identify ways in which those particular skills may be of use
• there are some areas of law where it is relatively easy to acquire the necessary skills and knowledge through research, training or supervised practice. Even where an area of law is complex, there may be discrete related areas where it is possible for solicitors to acquire the necessary expertise
• it is possible to explore models of pro bono practice that involve partnerships between pro bono solicitors and community legal organisations, although potentially stretched capacity and limited resources should always be considered when drawing on the time and expertise of such organisations. In light of this, it is common for firms opting for this model to pay for such partnerships and supervision

Making the best use of the existing skills base

The generic skills of a solicitor combined with their particular specialist skills, can be used to assist individuals or community organisations, namely:

• legal research and writing
• fact-gathering
• the ability to marshal persuasive arguments
• advocacy and negotiation skills

Solicitors are also asked on a regular basis, as part of their regular practice to undertake legal work involving areas that they are not familiar with.

They can do this because they know the framework of a particular area, where to look for detail and where to obtain support, including conceptual and strategic advice.

Depending on the circumstances of the client’s case, the law may not be so complex that a competent solicitor with adequate time and access to appropriate support cannot readily provide useful assistance.

Solicitors who would not be comfortable doing pro bono work face-to-face with clients in a clinic environment, or with little to no preparation time, or with dealing with issues outside their area of expertise, can still undertake pro bono work using their existing skills to address important community needs.

A clear match exists between the skills of solicitors working in corporate law firms and the needs of not-for-profit organisations which may include advice, drafting, negotiation or representation needs in areas such as:

• tax
• contracts
• incorporation and governance
• employment
• intellectual property
• data protection
• government tendering

An emerging potential area for increased pro bono work is the possibility of providing legal support to social enterprises and community building activities.

Acquiring new skills and knowledge for pro bono through training

There are some complex areas of law that will require in-depth technical knowledge and experience for the provision of effective pro bono advice.

Family law is a good example of an area where most commercial solicitors will not have developed expertise during the course of their practice and where it is more difficult to acquire the knowledge with a few hours or days’ training.

However, even within these legal areas pro bono support can still be effective, for instance where the scope of work has a clearly defined, narrow focus.

For other areas of law, it may be relatively easy for potential pro bono solicitors to build on their generalist skills with a modest amount of training.

Pro bono-related skills training and the opportunity to practise the new skills acquired can be of great benefit to the solicitors concerned and consequently to their law firms.

Large commercial firms use these opportunities to give junior solicitors client interview training and expose them to opportunities to work one-to-one with pro bono clients in a way that may not be possible in the cases they deal with in their commercial practice.

Advocacy is another area where solicitors are keen to benefit from training and experience associated with pro bono work.

Solicitors in large commercial firms who gain their higher rights of audience often have limited opportunities to exercise them in private practice and welcome the opportunity to do so on a pro bono basis.

Examples include the following.

The Free Representation Unit (FRU)

The FRU trains and supports volunteers who seek to represent clients at social security and employment tribunals.

The increasing focus on areas of secondary specialisation has led to several pro bono schemes which provide training and supervision for solicitors willing to learn legal knowledge and new skills. Some good examples include:

LawWorks

LawWorks has developed a project to provide legal support to the parents and carers of children with life-limiting and other serious conditions. Volunteers undertake case work supporting families in challenging unsuitable accommodation and unsuitable care packages.

Volunteers in this project are solicitors who do not practice in the specific areas of law, but they are supported by bespoke training and supervision through a specialist solicitors employed by LawWorks and the allocation of appropriate cases.

Asylum Support Appeals Project (ASAP)

ASAP trains and supervises non-specialists to represent asylum seekers at the Asylum Support Appeals Tribunal. Volunteers are expected to volunteer twice a quarter, picking up at least one appeal on each day.

The charity invests a significant amount of time in training and supporting volunteers.

Volunteers are invited to apply for a place on the scheme and are then interviewed before, if successful, being offered a place on the core training course alongside shadowing opportunities at the Tribunal.

Trainees are fully supported and assessed when they pick up their first case at the Tribunal.

If they pass their assessment, they are accepted onto the scheme as fully fledged volunteers. This rigorous approach has provided a reliable pool of volunteers. ASAP usually works with volunteers from specific firms with whom they have a relationship but do accept 2-3 volunteers a year from other firms and chambers.

Coram Children’s Legal Centre

For the Coram Children’s Legal Centre, the supervising solicitor developed materials and a handbook and ran a three-hour training session for new volunteer solicitors and trainees for the project.

The training was shared between the two law firms involved and covered the basics of citizenship law as well as guidance on taking instructions from child clients. New volunteers then shadowed the supervising solicitor for their first client interview, to put the training into practice.

KIND UK

KIND UK supports non-specialist lawyers and legal professionals undertaking pro bono to advise and represent children and families who can acquire nationality in the UK through registration as British citizens.

This work uses specialist staff at five Law Centres to deliver bespoke training and supervision for participating volunteers, and is designed to support volunteers with legal skills but no prior experience or knowledge of UK immigration legislation or the Immigration Rules.

Supervisors are specialist immigration solicitors or advisers with significant PQE; many split their time between pro bono supervision and direct client work in complex immigration matters.

Work after having completed the training is supported by provision of immigration expertise, either in a consultant or a supervisory role depending on need. Volunteers take their first cases while still being trained, in support of a “learn by experience” model facilitated by the close supervision from a specialist immigration solicitor.

In mature collaborations, most teams at firms engaging in pro bono develop significant local experience, allowing them to internally support new volunteers as well as using external training.

Where a need for training has been identified to support a firm’s pro bono programme this can be addressed in several different ways:

• commissioning a bespoke course with an external provider
• inviting an NGO partner to deliver the necessary training or partnering with a community organisation more formally for a particular project
• using an internal solicitor with the relevant specialism to train others within the firm
• booking places on an external training course

Commissioning a bespoke course to meet the needs of volunteers may be appropriate when a firm is seeking to train a large number of volunteers on its own premises at a time which will suit the firm’s volunteers.

Using a professional provider can be a good way to ensure a high standard of training and comprehensive notes/supporting materials.

The charity Pro Bono Community provides quality training to support pro bono programmes.

Firms may also collaborate to share training when they are working with the same NGO or in the same area of law. For example, law firms involved in the Collaborative Plan jointly organise training sessions and share training materials and other know how via an online dealroom.

Inviting an NGO partner to train volunteers has several advantages. A partner organisation will have a clear idea of the training needed.

It also provides an opportunity for volunteers to meet members of the organisation and understand how the work of volunteers fits with the organisation’s wider work and objectives.

In some circumstances it may be appropriate for the law firm to pay the partner organisation for the training provided.

External courses require the least preparation and administration and are particularly appropriate when only a small number of volunteers need training. A list of training course providers and the areas which they cover is set out in Appendix B.

Complementary partnerships

Commercial solicitors who are providing pro bono social welfare support can work in partnership with social welfare solicitors who can provide each other the skills and resources they need to take on pro bono matters they would otherwise find difficult to run on their own.

Such arrangements can involve firms providing research support to a solicitor based in a community organisation or could involve a of co-counsel arrangement.

A social welfare solicitor with good technical knowledge of an area of law could, for example, benefit from a partnership with an experienced litigator, particularly when strategic litigation is contemplated.

Additionally, a small charity may not have the capacity to take on the case work required to bring a case in the higher courts.

Training and skills for particular client needs

Solicitors undertaking pro bono work need to consider particular needs their client may have which may need to be factored in when providing advice.

For example, mental health or disabilities, homelessness or experiences as a victim of trauma.

Clients requiring interpreter services

Using interpreters effectively is a skill. Solicitors, paralegals and administrative workers should be trained in using interpreters, if relevant. Some key points to remember are:

• where possible, use professional, trained interpreters, not family members or friends as this might cause conflict and confuse matters. In UK advice clinics it is common for clients who need an interpreter to bring a friend or family member to assist. This may provide a practical solution in many cases but the adviser needs to be alert to the possibility of conflicts of interest between the interpreter and the client (also raises issues of quality and confidentiality)
• if the case is of a sensitive nature, ensure that an interpreter of appropriate gender, cultural or religious background is provided
• brief the interpreter before the interview about the nature of the case and the purpose of the interview. Decide in advance whether consecutive or simultaneous interpreting will be used
• arrange the seating to enable direct communication between you and the client. Frequently a triangular arrangement will be effective
• at the beginning of the interview you should introduce yourself and the interpreter and explain the role of each and how the interview will be run.
• speak in the first person to the client and use ‘you’ when referring to the client. For example, ‘Please tell me what you did next?’
• maintain eye contact with the client if this is culturally appropriate
• use short sentences and allow time for the interpreter to interpret
• avoid any legalese, jargon or slang
• do not speak louder when using interpreters; speak slowly and naturally
• ask the client to repeat back to you (through the interpreter) their understanding of what has been said to ensure that they understand
• stop the interview if the interview is not working and go over how to use interpreters with the client or interpreter

Professional interpreters have an ethical and professional obligation to maintain client confidentiality.

Where a client comes from a small community, they, or their associates, may know the interpreter. It is therefore vital that the interpreter fulfils their duty of confidentiality.

BPP Law School has set up a free Legal Translation Service to support pro bono legal advice.

Requests for assistance should be sent to translation@my.bpp.com.

Why coordinate pro bono?

When establishing pro bono as part of a firm’s practice it may not be apparent why you ‘ll need to have a means to coordinate your pro bono offering.

However, there are many benefits to coordination including:

• strategic planning – it is good to be proactive in determining what kind of pro bono work the firm will undertake. This will ensure you can maximise the impact of your work and minimise risk. A coordinator is able to manage the pipeline of pro bono opportunities and ensure the right opportunities are created
• quality control – having someone responsible for coordinating the pro bono matters coming into the firm ensures that you have the right pro bono matters for your skills set. This also ensures the pro bono work is delivered to the client to the same high standards as all the firm’s work
• making it easy to participate – having someone to coordinate enables participation by solicitors. If a pro bono matter is managed in the same way as a chargeable matter, it encourages those delivering it to view it in the same way, which helps to ensure regulatory compliance and conformity with the firm’s procedures and practices
• transparency and reporting – typically law firms will be expected to be transparent about the nature and volume of pro bono work undertaken for the benefit of the community and a coordinator can manage this. The range of stakeholders who will expect transparency and reporting may include your employees, candidates for graduate/trainee roles, professional associations and clients

Emerging phase of pro bono

As a firm starts to develop a pro bono practice you may wish to form a pro bono committee comprised of lawyers of all levels.

In smaller firms, pro bono may be coordinated by a solicitor on an ad hoc basis and as an add-on to their main role, but it is still important they get buy-in from the rest of the firm, in order for one individual’s passion to turn into a firm-wide programme.

Typically, larger firms with more than 100 lawyers will require a dedicated part time or full-time pro bono lawyer/coordinator, to generate and manage the pro bono practice.

Developing phase of pro bono

As pro bono grows within a firm, the need to coordinate increases.

During this phase the firm or team will have established sources for pro bono matters. Solicitors’ knowledge of pro bono and how to become involved will be increasing across the firm or team, with resulting increased participation rates.

It is at this stage that you might consider formalising the work of a pro bono organiser.

At this stage, a firm will need to consider its own size and resources and whether they have the capacity to pay for a pro bono coordinator.

Established pro bono programme

At this stage a firm will be becoming more nuanced in its offering and be developing a reputation for pro bono.

Typically, at this stage the firm will have a developed pro bono policy and have built a pro bono programme infrastructure, and might have invested in pro bono staffing, depending on its size and resources.

Developing a policy

Engaging the leadership of the firm in developing a policy will provide a good foundation for the establishment of a pro bono programme that has broad support at a management and partner level.

It will also result in the alignment of the policy with the firm’s strategic aims and an accurate reflection of the culture of the firm.

Firms might wish to encourage broad involvement in the development of the policy, to heighten awareness of pro bono, generate innovative ideas and projects and maximise staff ownership of, and participation in, the programme.

For in-house legal teams, the development of the policy may be linked with other internal documents and strategies or require particular approval processes.

The policy should be approved at the highest level of the firm’s governance structure. Once approved, it should be widely and regularly (for example, annually) circulated within the firm.

It should also be included in recruitment materials and in any materials prepared for orientation programmes for new employees. Firms can encourage staff to provide ongoing feedback about the policy to, for example, the pro bono committee or coordinator.

Contents of a pro bono policy

Pro bono policies differ considerably, particularly in relation to the level of detail included. Some firms’ pro bono policies are quite detailed and include guidance on procedures as well as matters of principle and structure.

Other firms choose to develop separate procedures documents, such as intranet manuals, and have fairly brief policy documents.

In practice, policies tend to include:

• a policy statement – this is generally a statement of commitment made by the firm indicating that pro bono work is important, why the firm is committed to it, and that solicitors and non-solicitors are expected or encouraged to participate in the pro bono programme
• the principle of equal treatment of pro bono work – that pro bono work must be done to the same standard and given the same priority as the firm’s commercial work
• a definition of pro bono for the purpose of the firm’s programme
• who is responsible for oversight and administration of the programme – for example, pro bono committees, partners and coordinators. Policies often state the names of the people on the committee and spell out the responsibilities of the committee, pro bono partners or others involved in the management of the programme
• internal procedures for intake, approval, placement, supervision, conflict checks, and opening and closing files. Some firms include the detail of these procedures in a separate document,
• how pro bono time is to be recorded and credited
• how costs and disbursements are to be dealt with, including pro bono costs orders

Some firms also include information about:

• the goals of the programme and evaluation criteria
• safeguarding policies for employees and pro bono clients
• referrals and the referral process
• targets and budgets

Where a policy is concise and does not address all the above points, particularly in relation to the practical operation of the pro bono programme, the firm is likely to also want to develop a detailed procedures document.

Embracing remote and digital delivery of pro bono services

Recent years have seen a significant shift in the way legal services are delivered, with the development and adoption of remote and digital tools becoming central to many firms’ operations.

A pro bono policy should reflect these changes by acknowledging and encouraging the use of digital platforms to broaden access to legal assistance.

Firms may wish to incorporate into their policy guidance on the use of virtual clinics, online intake and triage systems, and secure document sharing portals.

Remote services can be especially effective in reaching geographically dispersed clients, individuals with mobility challenges, and those unable to access traditional services for other reasons.

In drafting or updating the firm’s pro bono policy, the following considerations may be helpful:

• whether the firm supports participation in virtual or remote pro bono clinics
• standards for data protection and confidentiality in digital engagements
• supervision and quality assurance arrangements for online advice
• preferred platforms or technology tools, including any firm-provided systems
• training to support staff delivering services remotely

The inclusion of digital delivery in the pro bono policy should be viewed not only as a practical response to changing circumstances, but also as an opportunity to innovate and extend the firm’s pro bono reach.

Aligning Pro Bono with ESG and CSR Objectives

Pro bono work can form a core part of a law firm’s broader commitments to Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) principles and to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) objectives.

A well-considered pro bono policy can help ensure that the firm’s pro bono programme reflects and reinforces its values in these areas.

Firms are encouraged to consider incorporating into their policy explicit reference to how pro bono work aligns with ESG and CSR priorities. This may include:

• supporting charities, community groups or individuals working on racial justice, environmental sustainability, or gender equity
• prioritising matters that serve communities disproportionately affected by disadvantage or discrimination
• partnering with organisations led by or serving underrepresented groups

Linking pro bono activities to ESG and CSR strategies can also enhance internal engagement, strengthen the business case for pro bono, and provide a compelling narrative for clients and stakeholders.

Quality of pro bono work

For all pro bono cases, as for any fee-paying matter, supervision is necessary to ensure the quality of the pro bono work being undertaken by the firm’s solicitors is consistent with the firm’s goals and required standards.

The general principle that should apply to all pro bono work is that it must be subject to the same standards of attention, priority and professional performance as commercial work.

Supervision of pro bono work needs to be arranged to achieve this standard.

Many firms, to ensure that pro bono work is performed to the same standard as commercial work, use supervision by pro bono partners, managers, coordinators and/or committees.

Read the SRA guidance on effective supervision.

In practice, this means that firms must allocate supervising partners to pro bono matters and ensure that ordinary practices and rules apply in relation to advice and correspondence.

This supervision may extend to carrying out day-to-day supervision of particular pro bono matters in areas where they have expertise.

This practice may be covered by the firm’s pro bono policy, for example providing that the responsible partner supervises pro bono matters in the usual manner and all correspondence is to be signed by the solicitor’s supervising partner.

The policy may also require solicitors to provide, for example, three-monthly email reports for each pro bono matter to the pro bono committee or a minimum six-monthly review of all pro bono work undertaken in the firm.

Pro bono may involve supervisory arrangements for pro bono work that are additional to those normally applied to the firm’s other work because:

• the nature of the work, the types of legal issues and the processes of pro bono might be unfamiliar to solicitors
• pro bono clients might not be in a position to query the quality of the legal advice or service being provided
• pro bono matters might require expertise from more than one practice group in the firm requiring arrangements between groups and with different partners, which take into account varying capacity and time constraints

This supervision may also be provided externally, for example at legal advice clinics.

Some firms also rely on productivity summaries, monthly reports, periodic reviews and pro bono databases, which allow the practice to monitor the progress of the matter.

For example, monitoring of a pro bono matter being conducted by the firm, may include:

• the source of the referral
• the type of matter
• the names of the solicitor(s) and the supervising partner working on the matter
• the date of the letter of engagement
• equivalent fee estimate for the matter
• hours charged to the matter
• any limitation periods and any other relevant key dates associated with the matter
• the status of the matter (for example, awaiting judgment)

The pro bono manager or coordinator should be able to extract from the database a simple summary of current pro bono activity (a monthly report) showing the responsible solicitors and partners and the status of the matter.

The coordinator can use this report to review pro bono matters and make sure they are progressing appropriately.

This can also be used to supply an update to the pro bono client, particularly for pro bono work undertaken for charity clients who can use this gift in kind figure for pro bono when making applications for match funding or reporting as part of their accounting system.

The pro bono manager or coordinator can also use the report in monthly meetings with a partner from the pro bono committee so that any unresolved supervision issues can be raised and resolved with the assistance of that partner.

The report will also allow the coordinator to monitor how the firm is performing in relation to its pro bono targets, if any have been set.

Supervision considerations for different models

Depending on the model used by the firm to deliver pro bono assistance, there might be additional or different considerations in relation to supervision.

Supervision of clinics

To maintain an appropriate standard of legal work at clinics, adequate supervision needs to be in place, both at the clinic and when the matters undertaken at the clinic are being checked by supervisors at the firm.

Supervision of the work of solicitors participating in clinics can be challenging, given the different experiences and cultural differences between the firm and the host organisation.

You may wish to participate in a clinic scheme where a specialist solicitor is provided to act as a supervisor for the firm’s participating solicitors.

This gives reassurance that the proper level of supervision is being given by an expert in the field.

However, this is not always necessary and supervision can be provided by a senior solicitor or pro bono manager who has experience of volunteering at a legal advice clinic.

Training is also essential for solicitors participating in clinics.

Even if they are familiar with the area of law, they will still need training to understand the practices of the host organisation. For example, being aware of the limitations of the legal advice clinic’s scope of service and not providing advice outside of these areas.

Most training is provided by the host organisation.

The pro bono manager or coordinator will need to ensure that participating solicitors attend the training and, if possible, attend the training so they understand the issues and can assist with supervision.

The pro bono manager or coordinator will need to be available to clinic solicitors to supervise matters and answer questions.

They monitor the work to make sure matters are progressing, closed properly and returned to the organisation managing the clinic.

The host organisation should have a procedure manual setting out this process.

Where a pro bono manager or coordinator is unsure about how to run a matter then they should seek assistance from the host organisation, given that in most cases they have ultimate responsibility and carry the insurance for the work.

Some logistical concerns for the firm’s supervisor of a clinic, particularly if the clinic is off site in an outreach location, may include:

• the need to ensure solicitors have telephone and internet access, laptops and transport where needed, and
• that rostered clinic times are entered into their diaries

Visiting a new clinic prior to commencing participation will ensure that the set up complies with requirements from an occupational health and safety perspective.

Supervision of secondees

Supervision of secondees is an important part of ensuring that the secondee is making a positive contribution to the capacity of the organisation to which they are seconded, rather than being a drain on a community organisation’s resources.

A well supervised secondment is a fantastic opportunity to develop the skills of the solicitor on secondment that will benefit the firm on their return.

A secondment agreement setting out details such as the timeframes and parameters of work, insurance issues, and leave request requirements, should also lay the groundwork for a supervision arrangement.

While secondees’ time will need to be recorded while they are on secondment, most secondees are directly supervised by the host organisation, for example, the principal solicitor at a community legal centre.

Crediting pro bono work

There are numerous systems for crediting and/or recording the time spent by individuals on pro bono, but what is appropriate for a firm or organisation will depend on its size and its accounting, time-recording and billing systems.

Models include:

• full billable credit – pro bono hours are treated as billable hours for internal purposes
• separate billable and pro bono targets - every lawyer has a billable target (e.g. 1,500 hours) and a pro bono target (e.g. 50 hours)
• pro bono is treated as valuable non-billable time
• pro bono is treated as non-billable time

Typically, the firm’s or organisation’s billing systems will recognise pro bono matters as a special category of non-billable matters, so that a firm’s or organisation’s financial data is not contaminated.

However, hours recorded on these matters can still, in practice, be aggregated with billable hours for the purpose of conducting fee-earner reviews and bonus calculations.

To provide an example for larger firms, explore data from the Collaborative Plan for Pro Bono in the UK.

Explore examples of pro bono data throughout England and Wales as well as globally in the TrustLaw Index of Pro Bono.

Transparency and communication is key

The systems used will often depend on the size of the law firms or organisations concerned and the systems they have for opening and categorising client files.

The key thing is that the time spent by an individual on a pro bono file is captured internally, both to acknowledge and credit the individual for the work that they have done, but also so that the firm or organisation itself has an accurate record of its contribution to pro bono clients and files.

It is important that with any method chosen, solicitors across the firm or organisation are aware of how their time is recorded and categorised and that this fits with the overall culture of pro bono at the firm or organisation.

Recognising pro bono work

A firm or organisation will maximise participation in its pro bono programme by ensuring that there is effective communication and leadership from firm or organisation management and partners that an individual’s pro bono will be recognised.

It is especially important for firms or organisations trying to build a culture of pro bono to focus on pro bono in performance appraisals if they do not provide billable hours credit for pro bono.

Some ways in which pro bono can be specifically recognised by a firm or organisation are:

• in solicitors’ performance appraisals
• when considering promotion or advancement
• in salary (and, where relevant, bonus) reviews
• through internal communications
• awards and events
• the Pro Bono Recognition List of England and Wales is published annually to recognise solicitors who have given 25 or more hours pro bono legal assistance in the previous calendar year

Performance appraisals

Pro bono should be considered in all performance appraisals. Performance appraisals provide a practical way of recognising the pro bono contributions of solicitors within the firm or organisation.

It is important that when considered as part of the performance appraisal process pro bono is given appropriate weight. For example, by making pro bono a separate category in the appraisal form rather than it simply being a consideration with respect to another category (for example firm or organisation culture).

Promotion, advancement and salaries

In terms of promotion or advancement, some firms require their solicitors to outline their pro bono contribution in their application for promotion to senior associate, counsel or partner.

Other firms or organisations would recognise and acknowledge the professional development growth of individuals through pro bono projects and the further skills they have acquired by their involvement and/or management of particular pro bono projects. In this way pro bono is considered in salary reviews.

Bonuses can also be a way of recognising and/or encouraging contribution to pro bono. At some firms, solicitors cannot access their bonuses unless they have met the annual pro bono target set by the firm.

Other firms take pro bono hours into account when assessing the number of hours worked in consideration of appropriate bonuses (this can be the case even if the firm is not willing to consider pro bono hours as billable for the purposes of a solicitor’s utilisation during the course of the year).

Internal awards, events and communications

Internal communication of pro bono clients, projects and successes is essential to building a culture which recognises the importance of pro bono.

Channels such as posters, intranet announcements or simple newsletters can be a great way to showcase some of the pro bono work being done across the office or firm and to help sing the praises of those involved.

Wherever possible it always helps to try and give the bigger picture of the purpose behind a pro bono project, to create a wider appreciation of the intended or actual impact of the work.

Many firms or organisations individually name and congratulate solicitors who have performed above a certain threshold of pro bono in a year, or who have made a special contribution to pro bono at the firm or organisation or to a particular project that they were involved in.

Some firms or organisations even run intra-team and individual competitions. Recognition could involve thank you cards, a small token or gift, office nomenclature which shows they are a star performer in pro bono or the giving of pro bono awards.

This method of recognition has the added benefit of promoting the pro bono programme throughout the firm or organisation which is important for the establishment and maintenance of a strong pro bono culture.

Advantages of targets and budgets

Firms that have used targets and budgets have said that the advantages of doing so, include:

• sending a message to all in the firm about the firm’s commitment to, expectations of and goals in relation to pro bono work
• setting benchmarks against which the firm’s pro bono programme can be evaluated
• helping to manage the amount of pro bono work carried out and ensure that it is not detracting from fee-paying work

However, they have also stressed that setting budgets and targets can be disadvantageous if those adopted are too conservative or restrictive.

Why set a target?

A key indicator of a firm’s commitment to pro bono work and its subsequent success is whether capacity for this work is planned.

One method for capacity checking is for a firm to set a target for the amount of pro bono work that will be undertaken.

This target can be an aspirational, capped or mandatory target, and used as a minimum or maximum for the amount of pro bono work that is carried out within a firm each year.

Firms may choose to set targets for pro bono work for the whole firm and/or for groups or individuals within it.

Of course, any target setting comes with the pre-requisite of effective recording of pro bono hours otherwise the target cannot be assessed.

One advantage of setting an annual firm-wide minimum target, at least while developing a programme, is that the partnership may be more willing to commit to an active pro bono programme if the extent of the programme is clearly defined.

Setting an annual target may also be consistent with the way that other aspects of the firm’s business are managed, helping pro bono to be aligned with the business.

It may also allow or encourage the firm to think strategically about planning its pro bono work, especially initiatives that may have significant resource implications.

In order to encourage pro bono work, and a pro bono culture, it is important that any annual pro bono target is not too conservative or subject to a strict maximum.

Maximum targets can demotivate solicitors and give the impression that after reaching the maximum, the solicitor must cease to carry out pro bono work for the remainder of the year.

Targets also allow a firm to properly evaluate and assess their pro bono programme.

If the annual target is not met, the firm’s pro bono committee, manager (or similar) can enquire into the reasons for this and make adjustments to the pro bono programme.

A firm that regularly fails to meet its target by a significant margin may need to:

• reconsider the kind of work it is taking on, and their referral routes
• develop new sources of work or new areas of expertise
• review the pro bono budget and/or increase the size of the pro bono team
• explore whether solicitors are being appropriately encouraged to take on pro bono work, and recognised and rewarded for it
• consider the impact of failing to achieve the target in terms of staff morale and firm status if publicly reporting

The form of target

Firms vary as to what form their pro bono target takes.

Since 2014, more than 50 large law firms have publicly committed to a voluntary aspirational target of 25 hours of pro bono work, per fee earner, per year, averaged across the firm’s UK offices.

Many firms develop their own targets which best suit their firm’s culture.

Some models for targets are:

• total pro bono hours – e.g. a firm may commit to undertake 20,000 pro bono hours in a given time period
• hours per solicitor – this is an annual target set of total pro bono hours carried out by the firm. The total hours are calculated as an average of pro bono hours carried out across an average number of solicitors in the firm across the year. This is an easy target to calculate with proper time recording systems but does not illustrate the level of engagement of solicitors. This is the most widely adopted model of target
• pro bono as a percentage of billable hours – this is a target based on the firm’s total billable hours and their agreement that a percentage of these hours will have been given to pro bono. This target can cause issues for firms who do not wish to make public their total billable hours. Typically firms adopt a target of 3-5%
• a target for each group within the firm – one advantage of this is that each group is then clear about its pro bono expectations and monitoring can occur at the group level. If a group-based target is set in addition to an annual firm wide target, both should use the same metric for consistency. For example, hours per solicitor per year
• a target for each solicitor within the firm – where firms set targets for individual solicitors, these are often linked to the firm’s method of crediting and recognising those hours in terms of solicitors’ individual budgets, salary, advancement and/or performance appraisal.
• a target percentage of the firm’s solicitors, including partners, participating in pro bono – this is a good test for levels of engagement and, if successful, will lead to a widespread culture of pro bono across the firm
• a target number of matters for the firm per year – this is not a widely used target as this metric is not commonly used by most firms, however targets can assist those firms who operate on a fixed fee basis for their fee-paying work

Like any other targets, pro bono targets must be appropriately communicated, so the firm’s goals and expectations are well known. Any target set should be periodically reviewed, particularly in the early stages of the development of a firm’s pro bono programme.

A target should also be capable of upwards adjustment as the firm’s pro bono culture develops and capacity increases. It is important to recognise that targets will vary with each firm’s culture and that there isn’t a one-size fits all model. Firms must decide what works best for them and their priorities.

Attorney general Pro Bono Recognition List of England & Wales

In 2024 the Attorney General introduced the first Pro Bono Recognition List of England & Wales. It is now an annual event.

Firms and individual are invited to submit the names of solicitors (including foreign qualified), barristers and chartered legal executives who have undertaken at least 25 hours of pro bono work in the previous calendar year. 25 hours, therefore, is seen as a reasonable target for pro bono volunteers to achieve.

In-House Pro Bono Pledge

Available on the National Pro Bono Centre website, the In-House Pro Bono Group Pledge comprises seven commitments.

Pledge five states that signatory organisations will “commit to encourage 25% of the UK-based lawyers to undertake a minimum of one hour of pro bono work in the first year rising to 35% in the second year and 50% in the third year.”

Budgets for pro bono programmes

There are costs associated with running effective, professional pro bono programmes.

Unless a firm has a dedicated budget for the pro bono practice, the costs associated with pro bono will likely be absorbed into other budget lines and will become impossible to measure.

For this reason, it is important to have a separate operational or expenses budget for the management of the pro bono programme itself, similar to commercial teams within the firm.

This assists the firm in understanding its actual investment in pro bono. The level of budget allocation can vary greatly and many pro bono programmes in their initial stages can operate at very minimal cost.

The operational budget should take into account the costs associated with running the pro bono programme. For example, this may include:

• membership fees (some pro bono organisations require participating firms to pay a fee)
• travel
• business development and marketing – internal and external
• training
• other case matter disbursements
• the salaries of pro bono staff

In planning the operational or expenses budget it is important to determine what other expenses might need to be taken into account. These may include secondment of solicitors on pro bono placements or into the pro bono team.

If secondment costs are allocated to the pro bono budget then there will be no cost to a group if one of its solicitors is undertaking pro bono work.

If expenses are allocated to the group budget there will be a cost to the group which may affect the amount of pro bono work that a group is willing to support or undertake.

Firms have said that the introduction of a budget into a pro bono programme can truly assist to build a pro bono culture. It makes pro bono appear part of the business but also gives the firm an accurate indication of the cost of its investment.

Disbursements

Firms should decide a policy position on whether the cost of disbursements is billed to the client on pro bono matters.

This should then be included in the firm’s pro bono policy.

There are several ways of handling disbursements on pro bono matters.

Possible approaches include:

• charging no disbursement on pro bono mandates – that is, the firm will meet the cost of all disbursements
• not charging for internal disbursements (for example, photocopying or legal research search charges) and charging for external disbursements (for example, court fees which, following recent increases to court fees, can be substantial)
• charging for internal and/or external disbursements but only above a certain cap
• charging for all disbursements
• deciding on a case-by-case basis by the supervising partner (in which case it is good practice to set out in your policy some relevant factors, such as the nature of the mandate or the ability of the client to pay)

For contentious matters where costs can be recovered from the other side, disbursements can also be claimed in the normal way, but only where the pro bono client is liable to pay for disbursements.

Where the client is not liable for disbursements, they can be included in an application for pro bono costs (this is discussed in more detail below).

Pro bono costs

This section discusses the recovery of costs from the opposing party in contentious pro bono matters.

This very idea may seem a paradox. Pro bono work is of course 'free to the client, without payment to the solicitor or law firm (regardless of the outcome)'.

The most fundamental principle in cost recovery is the so-called indemnity principle, under which the amount the paying party has to pay to their opponent in costs cannot exceed the amount which the successful party has to pay to their own solicitor.

It is as an exception to this principle, then, that pro bono costs were introduced by s194 of the Legal Services Act 2007 (LSA).

In summary, these provisions allow, in certain courts, for a pro bono client to seek costs from their opponent in an amount no greater than the costs they would have been entitled to if they had been paying their solicitors.

If the court exercises its discretion to award such costs, they are paid not to the pro bono solicitors but to the Access to Justice Foundation, the charity prescribed by order made by the lord chancellor.

It is important to consider seeking pro bono costs wherever possible for two principal reasons:

• funds paid to the Access to Justice Foundation are used to support free legal advice and pro bono services to help those in need across the UK
• Pro bono costs order helps to level the playing field between a pro bono client and an opponent who is paying for representation. In the absence of the pro bono costs regime, such an opponent can threaten the pro bono client with substantial adverse costs without facing similar risks themselves

There are helpful materials and precedents:

• Access to Justice Foundation’s website
• Civil procedure rules (CPR 46.7)
• Practice directions (PD 46.4), and
• in relation to the UK Supreme Court, in (PD 13)

However, there are some key practical steps to remember.

Pro bono costs are only available in certain jurisdictions in England and Wales.

Following expansions to section 194 Legal Services Act pro bono costs are available in the County Court, Family Court, High Court and the Court of Appeal Civil Division as well as in civil appeals before the Supreme Court.

They are also available in tribunals which have the power to award ordinary costs (First Tier Tribunal, Upper Tribunal, Employment Tribunal, EAT and CAT).

Pro bono costs are available in fixed costs jurisdictions (such as in many civil enforcement applications).

And where the court retains a discretion to award pro bono costs only against a party who has behaved unreasonably (for example, in the small claims track)

Pro bono costs are available even when only a portion of the case has been done on a pro bono basis, and/or when some but not all of the legal team have been acting on a pro bono basis.

They can be applied for alongside ordinary civil legal costs as long as the privately paid time can be clearly differentiated from the pro bono time.

For example, where solicitors are acting pro bono and counsel are acting on a CFA, an application for pro bono costs can still be made in respect of the solicitors’ work

Include a reference to pro bono costs in all relevant engagement letters.

With individual clients (as opposed to charities) you may need to explain the concept of pro bono costs carefully so that you have clear instructions to apply for them.

Consider notifying the other side early on in correspondence of your intention to seek pro bono costs.

They may not be aware of pro bono costs and the potential of adverse costs may encourage them to reach a reasonable settlement.

If a settlement is negotiated, remember that pro bono costs can be included in settlements.

If you accept a part 36 offer, you can apply for a pro bono costs order.

If your pro bono client is liable for disbursements you can seek them in the normal way (rather than using the pro bono costs mechanism).

If your firm pays for pro bono client disbursements then they can be included in an application for pro bono costs; these will then be payable to the foundation.

However, if disbursements are set out separately within the order, it is the foundation’s policy to repay them to the relevant solicitors

Formal costs budgeting will be required in most contentious matters (where pro bono costs are being sought) in the same way that it would apply to matters involving fee paying clients.

In the first instance this will require the pro bono solicitors to prepare a costs budget (in the prescribed form), undertake ongoing monitoring of both their own costs and the costs of their opponents and apply to court to amend the costs budget wherever necessary

Ensure all solicitors working on your file record their time accurately (and to the correct Jackson Phase Code) and with full narratives.

This will be needed when you come to prepare a schedule of costs for formal inter-partes costs budgeting and costs recovery purposes.

Also, in terms of costs recovery, and in particular, the detailed assessment process, the pro bono solicitors’ timesheets and/or attendance notes (and all other supporting documents/files) may need to be lodged with the costs judge in advance of any detailed costs assessment hearing to support the time and costs claimed, in the usual way.

In addition to the formal costs budget (and updates etc.) referred to above, you’ll also need to prepare:

• a statement of costs for any hearings at which you intend to ask for pro bono costs to be awarded (especially hearings which last for one day or less). The statement of costs must be served on the other party and filed at court no later than 24 hours before the due start time of the relevant hearing. You may wish to use your firm’s usual costs solicitor/draftsman services or the Pro Bono Expert Support Scheme to help prepare this schedule
• a detailed bill of costs at the end of the matter, where the court has ordered pro bono costs be paid by the opponent, but those costs are to be subject to detailed assessment if not agreed
• all of the above costs documents referred to, the formal costs budget, statement of costs and detailed bill of costs, will have to be signed by the partner of the pro bono law firm who has the main conduct of the matter, certifying that the costs claimed are accurate (and in terms of the costs budget, proportionate)
• if your firm’s usual charge-out rates seem disproportionate to the nature of the mandate, you may consider adopting the Senior Court’s Costs Office (SCCO) national guideline rates

For successful interim hearings it will often make sense to ask for summary assessment on the day, rather than costs in the case, even if this means you get a lower sum awarded.

It is usually better to bank the win and secure a small award in favour of the foundation than risk adverse costs against your client in respect of the interim application and hearing.

For specialists costs assistance, the Pro Bono Expert Support (PBES) scheme (see also 15.3) includes a dedicated branch to assist pro bono lawyers with preparing schedules of costs and drafting applications for pro bono costs orders.

Pro bono lawyers can be partnered with dedicated costs lawyers and specialists. For more information, please get in contact with pbexpertsupport@nationalprobonocentre.org.uk to join as an expert or to obtain the request form.

The Access to Justice Foundation is not your client.

Potential conflicts can arise between the interests of the Foundation and those of your client, in which case the interests of your client must obviously prevail.

An example is in litigation in which the other side is insolvent: applying for pro bono costs in this situation may add to the insolvent party’s debts and therefore reduce the share of their assets available for distribution to your client.

Such conflicts can also arise in settlement negotiations.

For more information, or to notify the Foundation that you have secure a costs order, contact them by emailing costs@atjf.org.uk.

Why evaluation is important

Managing the pro bono resource

Most firms want to be able to track and monitor their pro bono work, both to ensure it is at the right level, and to enable them to deploy the resource efficiently and with the greatest impact.

Monitoring is often the first step to being able to evaluate the effective management of the pro bono resource.

The following quantitative data can be measured and recorded to help to support this type of evaluation:

• the number of pro bono hours performed
• the number and identity of pro bono clients assisted
• the number of pro bono matters handled
• pro bono hours as a percentage of total billable hours
• the nominal monetary value of hours worked (based on each fee earner’s charge out rates)
• sources of referrals (this will assist the firm to evaluate whether the sources of referrals are working to their optimum: firms may need to better develop their relationships with referring organisations)
• the types of pro bono matters and areas of law (this will assist the firm to evaluate the areas where pro bono need is evident as well as areas in which the firm is not receiving referrals)
• client profiles – this could include demographic information, such as gender, ethnicity and client location. Information of this kind will enable the firm to identify the kinds of clients receiving (and by implication, those not receiving) assistance, which in turn can inform decisions about targeting resources and/or developing referral sources
• the number of people in the firm participating in pro bono work (solicitors and non-solicitors)
• participation levels for different divisions and levels (for example, senior associates, and salaried partners)

Business development

For some corporate firms it is an increasing requirement to provide evidence of the type, range and quantity of pro bono work undertaken as part of the process of pitching for business.

Efficient data collection of the kind set out above makes this possible.

Reporting requirements of NGOs

Many firms are involved in pro bono partnerships with community and legal centres and other publicly funded legal assistance services and NGOs which are required to report in various ways on the pro bono resources they receive.

Charities in England and Wales, for example, are obliged to include in their accounts the financial value of the pro bono support they receive, which the efficient data collection referred to above makes possible.

Partner NGOs may also ask for sophisticated support in evaluating the success and impact of a project to which a firm has provided pro bono support.

Improving pro bono programmes and partnerships

Knowing whether pro bono efforts have achieved their goals, and if not, why, should inform future efforts to make the best use of the resources that are invested in pro bono programmes, projects and individual matters.

Effective communications

The data collected, analysed and presented through monitoring and evaluation can provide a sophisticated and compelling way of communicating the value of a pro bono programme, project or matter to internal and external stakeholders, for example:

• providing evidence to support the business case for pro bono to help build support for the pro bono programme within the firm
• promoting the values and demonstrating the pro bono culture of the firm when recruiting new
• staff, training existing staff, and in efforts to retain high-quality staff
• demonstrating the firm’s pro bono contributions and commitment to the community, and to external stakeholders such as government and corporate clients
• facilitating the provision of accurate statistical information to external pro bono referral schemes and organisation coordinators at the completion of pro bono matters
• allowing the firm to respond accurately to surveys on pro bono, for example, the National Law Firm Pro Bono Survey or the periodic Australian Bureau of Statistics survey of legal practices
• providing stories and figures that can be used in the firm’s public relations, marketing and communication activities

What does success look like?

Monitoring the outputs of a pro bono programme is integral to measuring how successfully a pro bono policy or strategy has been implemented.

It is worth investing the time to identify what the indicators of success of a policy or strategy are when drafting the policy or strategy and tracking these indicators over time.

Social impact

Measuring the impact made by its pro bono work on the community is probably the most complex and resource intensive aspect of evaluation that a firm may choose to embark on.

There is clearly great interest to be found in establishing, for example:

• what difference did the project make to individual pro bono clients’ lives?
• what impact did the pro bono work have on the capacity of partner community organisations to deliver services?
• what was the project’s broader social impact?

It is in this area, however, that social impact is rarely measured due to lack of resource and evaluation expertise within firms.

It may be that NGOs with whom a firm is collaborating are able to provide evidence of a project’s social impact.

Certainly, the NGOs may be well placed to provide quantitative outputs, for example the numbers of people provided with a particular service as a result of the pro bono work undertaken.

The deeper question of the actual positive change wrought by the delivery of the service is often more difficult to identify and evidence.

Some questions to think about before developing an evaluation programme

How, if at all, does the firm evaluate its fee- paying work?

If it does, are the approaches it takes to that evaluation going to be useful in an evaluation of its pro bono work or is a different approach required?

If the firm does not evaluate its fee-paying work, what is it about its pro bono work that makes it require evaluation?

How does the adoption of a different approach to pro bono work sit with the widely held commitment to treat fee-paying and pro bono work in the same way?

Some solicitors take the view that there is a self-evident worth in providing legal advice to assist in the resolution of a justiciable issue.

If the value is self-evident, what role does evaluation have to play? Should we be more concerned with ensuring the quality of our pro bono work than with evaluating it?

Might evaluation be more important at the design stage of a pro bono programme – by ensuring that a worthwhile programme is being created – than at its conclusion?

Easy ongoing evaluation ideas

Questionnaires

A simple way to facilitate ongoing evaluation is to have satisfaction questionnaires sent to the recipient of the legal advice.

That can happen immediately after a meeting in order to have maximum buy-in and response from clients.

Or it could happen within seven days of a meeting with the client, to enable actions to be taken that are planned in the meeting before the feedback is provided. Each case will be different and involve different time-scales.

The earlier the satisfaction questionnaire is sent out, the more likely is there to be a response.

Fitting the questionnaire to the client

Think about the individual client who is receiving the request for feedback.

The client may have needs or disabilities that prevent or inhibit a response.

Some clients may not have easy access to email or the confidence to fill in a questionnaire.

In those cases, the client may like to dictate a response over the phone.

Client feedback during meetings

Another immediate way of obtaining feedback to facilitate evaluation is by asking for feedback during a meeting.

The solicitor could ask for it in the last five minutes of a meeting, and a more formal and detailed satisfaction questionnaire could be sent by email after the meeting.

It can be important for the morale of the adviser to receive feedback, especially if the feedback is good or helpful.

Evaluation as a function of the law office business

The evaluation process should involve a Partner in the law firm (or person of equivalent rank and status).

Partners run a law firm and by having them involved in the evaluation process, it will help with their understanding of all aspects of the business, including its pro bono activity.

Partners have responsibility for the business and staff of the law firm.

The staff who provide pro bono advice need to be given the confidence that they enjoy the trust of the firm.

Buy-in from the partners is part of that process as well.

Most firms have monthly business review meetings.

The partner with responsibility for the pro bono offering of a firm can provide monthly written or oral reports about the success of the project.

This will facilitate ongoing evaluation.

Confidentiality and data control

At all times be vigilant about data control and the confidentiality of the pro bono client.

Publicity for the law firm

Part of the benefit of doing pro bono work is the ability to talk about the good work that your firm is doing.

Evaluation can add substance to those conversations.

Communication about your pro bono work should be with all relevant staff.

You want your staff to be able to talk appropriately about your pro bono work with their friends and contacts.

There should be appropriate professionalism about the manner in which evaluation of the project is presented to the public.

The evaluations shared with the public should be accurate, informative and easy to understand.

The material should also be presented to the public in a manner which meets the cultural nature of the firm.

Instructions from a qualified solicitor

Where the solicitor wishes to formally instruct counsel on a professional but pro bono basis, the normal professional obligations apply, and counsel’s duties are no different to those in a fee-paying case.

However, precisely because counsel has agreed to waive fees, and is providing the assistance on the basis of goodwill, there can be more scope for misunderstanding as to exactly what they have agreed to do expressly, and impliedly within the scope of those instructions.

An example is where counsel has agreed to attend a hearing on a pro bono basis and is then potentially required for a hearing on the same day in another case, which is fee-paying.

Counsel’s professional obligation to attend the pro bono hearing is clear but can lead to friction. In such situations, it is essential for the solicitor to ensure that the standard procedures are observed in terms of:

• dealing with counsel’s clerk
• clearly defining the work which counsel has agreed to do and the basis on which he has agreed to do it, and
• making clear when the pro bono relationship is deemed to have ended and counsel’s professional obligations to have been discharged - (this can be important in the case of advice on appeal and time-limits)

It should be stressed that where a qualified solicitor is employed by an advice agency and does not have a current practising certificate, they are not entitled to instruct counsel on a pro bono basis.

There will be situations where the solicitor wishes to retain an involvement in the case but does not wish to go on the court record, either from the outset, or at some stage in the case.

In these situations, while the solicitor can instruct in the usual way they can also use the services of Advocate.

Advocate

Advocate (formerly the Bar Pro Bono Unit) was set up to overcome some of the above problems and the scheme enables barristers, to accept instructions from a client on a direct access basis, where the direct access criteria would otherwise not be fulfilled.

To ensure that barristers comply with their professional obligations and are covered by the Bar Mutual Insurance Fund, it is essential that the requirements of the scheme are properly complied with.

Advocate is not an instructing body. Advocate has been granted a licence from the Access to the Bar Committee of the Bar Council.

This licence permits clients to instruct the barrister as identified by Advocate directly (without the intervention of a solicitor), for the particular piece of work approved by Advocate.

Subject to Advocate’s criteria for acceptance, solicitors or advice agencies may wish to use the Advocate’s services where the solicitor or agency employee is:

• insufficiently qualified or does not have a current practising certificate and is thus not entitled to instruct counsel, or
• entitled to do so but does not wish to instruct in the traditional way

Advocate will only accept cases without a solicitor if it believes that the piece of work required is one that is professionally appropriate for a barrister to carry out without solicitor support.

The purpose of the scheme is to enable agencies and/or individual applicants to find counsel willing to provide pro bono assistance, whether in the form of advice, drafting or representation, on a direct access basis in cases which meets Advocates criteria for acceptance.

Once counsel has been found and has formally agreed to act, Advocate drops out of the picture and there is a direct relationship between counsel and the client to which the normal professional obligations apply.

Work through Advocate is accepted, unless specifically agreed otherwise on the terms that mirror the Licensed Access Terms of Work, but that are modified to take account of the fact that the work is being undertaken pro bono.

At no time does Advocate ‘instruct’ counsel nor does it have any further responsibility in the case once counsel has agreed to take it on.

Each piece of work is approved separately by Advocate, and further authorisation must be obtained from Advocate for each piece of work

Advocate does not provide any legal advice or assistance to the client, nor can it carry out the functions of a solicitor or advice agency.

For details of the scheme and relevant forms, see Advocate’s website.

Partner schemes

Advocate operates partner schemes where barristers can assist in specified areas of law, courts and geographical areas.

The criteria of the schemes vary. 

Casework

Advocate also work with a panel of volunteer barristers through the mainstream casework service.

In short, the procedure is as follows:

Individuals can apply directly or can be referred by other organisations.

Advocate is staffed by caseworkers who will process the application and, provided it complies with the basic requirements, send it to an Advocate reviewer, who will be, in general, an experienced barrister of at least seven years’ call.

The reviewer will decide whether Advocate ought to accept the case, taking into account:

• its merits
• the applicant’s means
• the availability of other assistance, and
• all other relevant circumstances, including whether, looked at in the round, it warrants asking counsel to provide their services pro bono

Advocate’s panel counsel commit to providing three days’ work per annum on a pro bono basis and so any application for a specific piece of work requiring in excess of that is likely to be rejected for representation, but could still be considered for advice/drafting prior to this.

The agency/applicant will be notified by Advocate of the outcome of their application.

Assuming the application has been accepted, Advocate will seek counsel. This is done through several channels, electronically, website, weekly emails, through clerks, telephone etc.

If counsel can be found and, having reviewed the papers is willing to take the case, that will be confirmed in writing between Advocate, counsel and the agency/applicant.

From that point, Advocate’s involvement ceases and counsel takes over for the specified piece of work.

Solicitors/agencies should bear in mind the following:

• the assistance counsel is required to provide will be clearly defined by the reviewer. This means that the application form must specify precisely what assistance is being sought. Counsel will not be required to provide any assistance other than that defined by the reviewer and impliedly falling within the scope of that description
• applications should relate to a specific piece of work, for example, advice on merits. Provided that that piece of work will not take more than three days and the criteria are otherwise satisfied, the fact that the overall case will last more than three days will not preclude the application being accepted
• the fact that counsel has agreed to act pro bono in respect of one aspect of the case does not commit counsel to provide any further assistance beyond that described by the reviewer
• if the solicitor or agency has already found counsel willing to act, that is perfectly acceptable and counsel’s details should be supplied to Advocate. Provided the case satisfies the above requirements and the reviewing criteria, Advocate will ensure that the case is sent to the counsel of choice and authorised accordingly under the licence
• once counsel has agreed to accept the case, the solicitor/agency is entitled to continue to provide assistance to the client and counsel. It will be important to clarify the basis on which such assistance is being provided and the nature of the professional relationship between the solicitor/ agency and the client
• save in exceptional circumstances, the application will be refused where the solicitor is charging or has entered into any form of no win/no fee arrangement with the client. This does not apply where the advice agency is not-for-profit and its charging arrangements are not manifestly unreasonable
• if there is any doubt about the operation of the scheme, Advocate can deal with queries by email (enquiries@weareadvocate.org.uk)

Pro bono connect

Pro Bono Connect is a scheme supported by LawWorks which matches solicitors and barristers acting pro bono on civil matters for individuals, charities and community groups who cannot afford legal advice or representation.

The scheme, which is free for solicitors and barristers to join, enables lawyers to submit a request for relevant assistance on a case from the other branch of the legal profession.

Pro Bono Connect then seeks to match the request for assistance with a member firm or barrister, as appropriate.

For more information, please email:

• probonoconnect@lawworks.org.uk, or
• admin@probonoconnect.co.uk