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UK Law Articles
These articles are reproduced from old newspapers. Whether you are looking for old articles about the Lord Chancellor's Department, or trying to find stories on solicitors, judges or courts, the law teacher article database is here to help you. You will find these articles useful for writing your law essays, law dissertations and law coursework.
The Times
April 1 1997
Frances Gibb on solicitors who work for no charge
A pro bono groundswell
For Leigh Day it was a coup, some of the best public relations that solicitors have attracted in recent years. When four years of battling to obtain legal aid for a ground-breaking law suit failed, the London firm said it would take on the action, a test case for victims of smoking, anyway. The costs will run to £3 million, which the firm is willing to carry.
If Leigh Day wins, it will recoup the costs, on the "no win, no fee" basis. But the risks are there and in the meantime, it will not be paid for the work. The work may not be not pure pro bono, in the sense of making no charge at all, but it comes close.
On such a scale, the move was bold and unprecedented. Yet much pro bono publico (for the public good) work is going on and more is planned. There has been little publicity, but now the first detailed survey of what firms are up to has been carried out by Andrew Boon, the head of Westminster University's law school.
The tradition of providing free public services harks back, he says, to the Middle Ages. But the arrival of the legal aid scheme in 1949 partly relieved lawyers of their obligations. With legal aid under cost controls, solicitors are re-examining what they can do.
The survey looked at 100 firms, ranging from 229-partner outfits to 15-partner firms. Its findings will be published later this year in Modern Law Review. Five of the six firms that responded said they did pro bono work and gave details. It spanned giving legal advice at law centres and citizens' advice bureaux, handling cases referred by groups such as Liberty, handling Death Row appeals to the Privy Council and giving advice to organisations such as charities. Much of the work in law centres is done by trainees. But senior staff are also involved. One firm estimated it had devoted more than 5,000 hours in the past five years to Death Row appeals. Much was informal and records kept were patchy. But Mr Boon concludes that "some large firms in the UK have a small but possibly growing commitment" to pro bono work.
A smaller survey by Nottinghamshire Law Society throws up the same kind of picture. It found that among older solicitors, up to a tenth of their time is spent pro bono, although much of this work involves sitting on boards of charities, schools and clubs.
With the younger solicitors, the work is more likely to be free legal advice given direct to clients. Now, though, there are initiatives to formalise this pro bono patchwork. The Solicitors Pro Bono Group, a national committee representing eight firms and chaired by Tony Willis, a Clifford Chance partner, has been set up and is advertising for its first full-time director. About 100 replies have been received. "The idea," he says, "is to raise the profile of pro bono work among solicitors nationwide and turn this into an enduring framework for a coherent programme."
But what of the Law Society? The idea of the Solicitors Pro Bono Group came from Andrew Phillips, solicitor and founder of the Citizenship Foundation. So far, the society has not taken a lead; in 1994 it rejected the idea of imposing a mandatory pro bono requirement on the ground that this would help the Government to legal aid. Mr Willis agrees that making the work mandatory would be a "recipe for disaster". But the Law Society has not promoted a culture of pro bono work as the American Bar Association has, partly because of the real struggles of many small firms it seeks to represent.
Tony Girling, the President, says: "It is clear from surveys and anecdotal evidence that a great deal of pro bono work by solicitors throughout England and Wales has gone unrecognised. We are a caring profession and do not have to be compelled to provide support to those in need." The way forward, he says, is to build on existing work, and the society will give the pro bono group all possible practical support.
Letting people know what is being done so they can find help is now the key aim. There are other initiatives: the London Young Solicitors Group is setting up a register of solicitors in the capital willing to do pro bono work, so they can liaise with the Bar Pro Bono Unit (see Law, March 25). Kit Johnson, a student at the College of Law, is seeking to set up a scheme like the Bar's Free Representation Unit, in which law students can give people advice and help in tribunal cases. There are also groups such as the Environmental Law Foundation (0171-404 1030), a network of lawyers, scientists and others who give initial free advice and in some cases action, as well as groups such as Liberty, and Justice, who help with human rights cases.
David Wilson, a partner with the City firm Simmons & Simmons and chairman of the City of London Law Society Pro Bono working party, says: "Historically, lawyers have been retiring about talking about doing work free. But industry is now leading the way about corporate community involvement and solicitors are slowly picking that up."