Pro Bono 2012 | Encouraging a pro bono culture

This year’s Pro Bono Week also marks my 25th year at the Fulham Legal Advice Centre (FLAC). FLAC is a member of Advice UK, the largest network of independent advice agencies in the UK and part of the LawWorks network of free legal advice clinics across the country.

Over the past quarter-century I have given my time free as a legal volunteer most Monday evenings, from 7 to 9pm. FLAC helps people who don’t have access to publicly funded advice (an ever increasing number) and need advice on a range of problems in their lives. Typically this covers social welfare issues, employment law, housing matters and consumer disputes.

During that time I have seen the role of pro bono grow in importance as public funding has gradually been withdrawn, leaving more and more people to struggle to gain access to proper legal support.

Giving back

But as I look back I am struck more by the fact that although my original motivation for becoming involved was a desire to ‘give something back’, what has spurred me on and kept me so involved is the amount I personally have gained.
I became involved with FLAC soon after I qualified as a lawyer. I began as a volunteer adviser, and I have been involved with FLAC in a variety of different roles both frontline and management, including as chair, management committee member and director. So in a sense I have a truly 360 degree view of FLAC and its work.

Of all the roles, working as a front line adviser is probably the most challenging, but also the most rewarding – and a role I have continued throughout my association with FLAC.

Generally I will see about three people on a Monday evening. The people I see will be anxious about the difficulties they face and the meetings can be emotionally charged. In addition, English is often not their first language, which means that giving clear advice in a way that makes sense to them is often extremely difficult.

FLAC recruits law students and trainee lawyers who will do the initial interview, drawing out the legal issues so I can be briefed. Another important function of this pre-interview is to give clients an opportunity to vent their personal and emotional frustrations, so that by the ?time they meet me they are ready to focus more on the legal and practical issues in their situation.
There are times when there is nothing much I can do in a practical sense – if a client is owed money by someone who simply doesn’t have any hope of paying back the debt, no amount of imaginative legal advice is going to magic up the money from nowhere – but I am continually amazed at the benefit clients say they get simply from having the reality of a situation clarified to them by someone who can see the issues clearly and knows definitively what can and can’t be done. They say it helps them bring closure, enables them to put the situation behind them – and most importantly, it helps them move on.

More happily, there are many situations where something practical can be done through the legal process. However, the problem there of course is that resources at FLAC are extremely stretched and taking an action all the way to court can take up more time and resource than they have to spare.

Firm’s culture

On occasions I will take cases into my firm where a team of volunteers will give up time to help FLAC’s clients. We have found this a real plus for staff morale – after all people generally feel good about giving something back. Also for us in particular, it’s part of our culture, to be human rather than faceless, and to have a heart rather than only be concerned about the bottom line.

As you’d imagine, the work we bring to the firm from FLAC is very different in nature from the work we do for our paying clients. Whereas our day job will involve commercial advice to big name clients in the retail, property, healthcare, pharmaceutical or logistics industries, or matrimonial advice to high-net-worth individuals, a current example of our work for a FLAC client is a no-win-no-fee action I am pursuing for an individual disputing a legal bill submitted incorrectly after a whiplash claim.

We all find that taking these opportunities to advise in areas of the law that are less familiar to us works like a cross-training exercise, flexing the lesser-used muscles in our legal brains to tone up the skill-set.

FLAC has worked on many landmark cases over the years. For instance, the case of Kola & Mirzajani v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions [2007] UKHL 54. It considered whether asylum seekers should be bound by the conduct of the agents who assist ?them to enter the UK illegally with a view ?to claiming asylum.

Funding fears

The LawWorks legal advice centres are funded through membership fees, ?donations and grants, none of which is guaranteed long term. So for those who cannot afford legal advice, even this safety net is under threat.

So far as FLAC is concerned, every management committee meeting is now dominated with a review of the position on funding and whether we will be able to continue. We are lucky to have had support in the past but it is not guaranteed for the future and FLAC is suffering like everyone else with the ever increasing demand for support from a limited pot of money.

There is a desperate need for more people to get involved with these pro bono initiatives, not just giving up their time to help deliver the frontline legal advice, but also raising the much needed funds to ensure these projects can continue into the future. I would encourage anyone to get involved. It’s not just about giving something back, but also what you personally will undoubtedly gain from the experience.