Alison McKenna, principal judge at the Charity Tribunal, lists the range of free legal advice available for charities and voluntary groups around the country.
I was delighted when LawWorks invited me to be one of the judges of this year’s National Pro Bono Awards. During the course of the judging process, I was hugely impressed by the range of Pro Bono legal advice undertaken by the short-listed firms, and I was especially interested in the work undertaken for charities and other community groups.
I learned a lot about the wide range of free legal advice available to charities though my involvement in the awards process, so I hope I can draw the charity sector’s attention to some really great initiatives by writing a bit about them.
By way of background, LawWorks is the working name of the Solicitors Pro Bono Group (registered charity number 1064274). LawWorks tell me that, based on feedback they received, in 2013 their volunteer lawyers dedicated approximately 4,846 hours to pro bono advice., with an estimated value of approximately £1,393,774.
LawWorks for Community Groups is a dedicated scheme which offers free legal advice and guidance to small charities and other community organisations in England and Wales.
The Community Groups project works by brokering specific pieces of legal advice for community groups on a wide range of legal areas including company and charity law, contract, employment, intellectual property, tax and VAT, property, insurance and insolvency.
The advice is provided by LawWorks’ member firms, under the auspices of the Pro Bono Protocol, which sets the “client care” standard for the relationship – regulating it much as if the charity were the paying customer of a law firm.
LawWorks has also supported the development of dedicated legal advice clinics for community groups - you can find information about these on the LawWorks’ website. The clinics offer charities the opportunity to seek initial pro bono advice from a solicitor on either a drop in or appointment basis, either face-to-face or over the telephone.
The Community Groups project also publishes factsheets to give general information to community groups on specific areas of law, to enable them to spot and avoid potential legal problems and is developing a range of legal training videos which will soon be available on YouTube. There is even one about the Charity Tribunal! Finally, for community organisations unlucky enough to be involved in a dispute, LawWorks can broker the services of an independent trained mediator, who can help settle situations to the satisfaction of both parties.
The National Pro Bono Awards celebrate the best pro bono activities undertaken by organisations and individuals and the positive impact they have had on those helped. It was a really difficult task for the judges to single out just one of the short-listed firms or individuals for an award in each category, as there was so much to admire in the work undertaken by them all.
To highlight but a few, I was really interested to learn that its not just the private practice law firms who undertake pro bono work for community groups but also in-house legal teams. The award for the best contribution by an in-house team went to Siemens this year, who, for example, had advised one charity through the process of taking a lease of new premises and another through the process of registration with the Charity Commission.
The best contribution by an individual award went to Christine Ball from the legal advice clinic at Liverpool University, who had led an important project in which volunteer law students had reviewed many thousands of documents in connection with the Hillsborough inquiry, supporting bereaved families through the process of preparing their papers for the new inquest.
And the best partnership in pro bono award went to a partnership between a Community Law Centre and the UEA Law Clinic, in which student volunteers had been trained and supported to represent clients in a variety of Tribunals. The national pro bono centre award went to Lawyers Volunteering for the Arts, which is a pro bono legal project set up by a group of London law firms, providing free legal advice to low income and not-for-profit arts and cultural organisations throughout the UK.
Its difficult to know how any of these charities could have afforded to pay for legal advice and it has been truly heartening to see how their charitable work has been supported by lawyers volunteering their time and skills through pro bono initiatives such as these. You can find out more about LawWorks for Community Groups at www.lawworks.org.uk/community-groups.
