Pro bono
Law for change
We provide free legal services in the public interest (pro bono) to a wide range of clients, from individual asylum seekers to some of the world’s biggest charities. We believe everyone should have effective access to their legal rights, and focus our effort on promoting access to the rights of our target groups, including women, children, LGBT+ people, trafficking survivors and refugees.
Our aim is to have the greatest possible impact on access to justice and access to opportunity, through deep relationships with our ongoing pro bono clients and by proactively supporting them in addressing systemic issues. Our pro bono clients are clients of the firm: we don’t distinguish internally between paid work and pro bono, and often bring together cross-border, cross-practice teams as needed.
Our pro bono clients also benefit from the skills of our business services professionals (for example, from our IT, marketing and human resources departments). And we work with legal teams at our corporate clients to support their pro bono activities, and collaborate on projects that meet our shared objectives. To find out more about our work, see the detailed case studies listed below.
Last year over 1,200 lawyers across 28 offices...
...gave over 61,000 hours of free legal work...
...on 466 matters for over 250 pro bono clients
Awards
UK Pro Bono Initiative of the Year 2018
The Lawyer Awards – Shelter’s Children’s Legal Service
Excellence in Pro Bono award 2017
UK Law Society’s award for our work for victims of modern slavery
US Above and Beyond award 2018
Sanctuary for Families award for work on gender-based violence survivors
US Abolitionist Award 2018
Coalition Against Trafficking in Women award for vast and diverse work on anti-trafficking
Pro Bono Law Firm of the Year award 2018
International Financial Law Review Asia Awards
