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Our commitment to the community
We believe that, as lawyers, we have a moral duty to use our skills to benefit the community and that business can, and should, be a force for good.
This firm's success cannot be viewed in isolation from the broader community in which we live and work and we also recognise that pro bono work brings its own rewards for those who get involved.
How it works
We focus our pro bono activity to ensure our efforts and expertise have the widest impact. We use the following criteria to assess whether or not we are able to work on a pro bono basis:
- Resources and financial means – the focus of our pro bono work is on smaller charitable and not-for-profit organisations which cannot afford to pay for specialist legal advice.
- Area of legal specialism – the proposed work must fall within our expertise. We are a commercial law firm with a broad range of legal specialisms. However, we do not, for example, have the skills to assist with some serious social issues such as domestic violence or personal debt.
- Workloads – sometimes, we cannot accept new pro bono instructions because our lawyers are already committed to other projects and we will only take work on if it can be done to the highest standards.
- Personal interest – our pro bono work is undertaken by individual lawyers voluntarily. If one of our lawyers has a personal interest in a particular project, it is more likely to be accepted on a pro bono basis.
- Charitable purpose – our Community Fund focuses on those organisations that support young people, help overcome disadvantage and improve social mobility. We are more likely to be willing to give pro bono advice if we think an organisation meets these aims.
- Conflicts – our professional duties require us to act in the best interests of our clients. This means we cannot assist if the work involves us in a conflict of interest with another client.
Get in touch
Please fill in the application form below if you’d like to discuss how we could help your organisation with pro bono support.
We want to help organisations that otherwise cannot afford to pay for legal support. We therefore aim to support organisations with an annual turnover of less than £500,000 and unrestricted funds of less than £100,000.
Due to our location, we would prefer to work with charities in the North East and Cumbria.
Our response times
We will be reviewing all applications for pro bono support at the end of each calendar month. We will contact you if we need any further information from you in the meantime, otherwise you should expect to hear from us at the beginning of next month as to whether we can support you.
