LawWorks & Attorney General Student Awards 2010
On Tuesday, 30 March, LawWorks recognised students and law school staff from across the UK for their outstanding achievements over the past year. The Attorney General, Baroness Scotland, once again presented the awards at the House of Lords.
The winners were as follows:
- Best Contribution by a Law School – Northumbria University
- Best Contribution by an Individual Student – Natasha Latiff (University of Warwick)
- Best Team of Students – Queen Mary, University of London
- Best New Pro Bono Activity – University of Durham
The event was again generously sponsored by legal publisher and information supplier, LexisNexis. The company has offered the winning individual, Natasha Latiff, the chance to spend two weeks in the USA gaining first hand experience of pro bono activity on the other side of the Atlantic.
The Attorney General, Baroness Scotland QC, said, “Innovation, excellence and professionalism are writ large in the entries for this year’s Awards. We should remember that the entrants have combined busy academic or postgraduate studies with a fierce commitment to their pro bono work. They are an inspiration to me; I am certain they are an inspiration to everyone.”
Click here for further information on the winners, runners-up and other short listed nominees.
Special thanks must go to our volunteer panel of judges who gave up their time in order to decide on the short list and winners:
- Husnara Begum - Editor, Lawyer 2B
- Hugh Brayne - Tribunal Judge, former academic and pro bono activist
- Tom Laidlaw - Head of Academic Development, LexisNexis
- Linda Lee - Vice President of the Law Society for England & Wales
Nominations will open in December for next year’s awards.
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| University of Northumbria accept their award in the Best Law School category for the second time in three years. |
The Queen Mary Pink Law team pick up the award for Best Contribution by a Team of Students |
Head of Durham Law School, Tom Allen, and Sam Tate from project sponsors, Clifford Chance, accept the award for best new activity |
Andrew Williams and students from University of Warwick accept the Best Individual Student award on behalf of Natasha Latiff |
The LawWorks Awards Ball 2010
The LawWorks Awards Ball will take place on Tuesday 15th June at Gibson Hall, 13 Bishopsgate, London.
The theme chosen for this year is “A Night at the Movies”
The event will begin with a drinks reception, followed by dinner and the presentation of the LawWorks Pro Bono Awards. Continued on from that will be dancing until 11.30pm.
The tickets cost £120 and can be purchased from Anne Monk at am@lawworks.org.uk
This promises to be an exiting evening, so shake out your glad rags and shine up your dancing shoes for a great time will be had by all!
Politicians’ Question Time 30 March 2010
Representatives from the three main political parties and the Chief Executive of the Law Society participated in the lively LawWorks Question Time debate on 30 March. Lord Bach, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Justice; David Howarth, Liberal Democrat MP for Cambridge; Des Hudson, Chief Executive of the Law Society and Dominic Grieve QC, Conservative Party MP discussed the future of Legal Aid after the election.
With a general election imminent, the Legal Services Commission is moving to an executive agency of the Ministry of Justice and the Magee Review has recommended other, wide-ranging reforms. Questions were raised by audience members drawn from solicitor firms and not-for-profit organisations concerned with legal advice and legal aid provision.
All parties were in agreement that there would be no additional money for legal aid in the near future. Whilst public legal education and telephone advice lines were supported, all agreed that neither of these services were a substitute for appropriate legal representation.
Lord Bach committed to maintaining current funding of legal help for social welfare law and supported an online version of NHS Choices for dealing with legal queries. He concurred that there had been too much micro-management of Legal Services Commission contracts but in terms of time periods, agreed with the 3-year contract period. Lord Bach’s view was that there needs to be a balance with time periods to allow cessation of contacts that were not performing. Lord Bach also envisioned the continuity of fixed fees for legal aid.
Dominic Grieve supported a “polluter pays” system whereby a local authority would cover the legal costs of any matter that was brought against them as a result of an error on their part. He noted that centralisation of services in the form of the LSC had been expensive and advocated decentralisation. Mr Grieve stated that legal aid contracts should be terminated if firms are not performing and that the Law Society should offer a greater level of information about firms, including the possible payments systems they offer such as Conditional Fee Arrangements.
David Howarth raised the possibility of a graduated legal aid payment system to replace the current fixed fee system.
Des Hudson introduced the Law Society Manifest 2010 “Delivering Justice”. This calls for the maintenance of current legal aid eligibility levels and a legal aid impact assessment with every new piece of legislation together with an indication of how costs will be met. The manifesto also supports a “polluter pays” policy for local authorities and other bodies whose failed prosecutions cause costs to the legal aid fund to reimburse their costs.
Robin Knowles QC chaired the debate on behalf of LawWorks and Norton Rose LLP kindly hosted the event.
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| Lord Bach, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Justice |
David Howarth, Liberal Democrat MP for Cambridge - Shadow Justice Secretary |
Des Hudson, Chief Executive of the Law Society |
Dominic Grieve QC, Conservative Party MP - Shadow Justice Secretary |
London Legal Sponsored Walk 2010
 The 2010 London Legal Walk is now less than 7 weeks away, taking place on Monday 17th May. The walkers will set off at 5.30 and walk (or run!)10km – about six and a bit miles. Last year around 4000 people walked, raising in the region of £390,000 for advice agencies in London and the South East.
This year LawWorks has entered a great team, already numbering 21 with the help of some of our dedicated Choices volunteers. We’re hoping to beat last year’s funds, and are lucky to have the added bonus of the Ministry of Justice matching everything we raise pound for pound!
We’d really encourage anyone who hasn’t entered a team yet to do so quickly. It’s a brilliant and entertaining event for a worthwhile cause. If you’ve never entered a team before, then you could even elect for 50% of your efforts to come straight back to LawWorks! We’re already being supported in this way by members Covington & Burling LLP and Vodafone and non-member Maxwell Winward LLP. Just let Bob Nightingale, of the London Legal Support Trust (LLST), know when you register your team. Of course, if you’d like to sponsor us then we’d be hugely appreciative as ever – you can do so on our Justgiving webpage – www.justgiving.com/lawworks-walkers2010.
There is also a fundraising quiz at the Law Society on Wednesday 12th May for the LLST – it promises to be great fun!
Contact Bob Nightingale (chair@londonlegalsupporttrust.org.uk) for further information or to register a team.
Did you know that LawWorks… provides insurance to in-house counsel to do community groups casework?
Insurance cover is provided by membership of LawWorks for in-house legal teams that want to carry out pro bono work with small charities facing legal problems.
LawWorks Supporter Membership
LawWorks is pleased to announce the introduction of Supporter Membership for individuals. The cost is currently £23.50 for one year and this membership provides access to email newsletters and advance notice of LawWorks events. Membership of the Supporter Plus category at £70.50 additionally provides access to LawWorks CPD-accredited legal training courses. Click here for full details.
Member Firm of the Month - Bird & Bird LLP
What are the main areas of law practised at this firm?
Bird & Bird is an international law firm with over 200 partners in 21 offices across Europe and Asia. We deliver high quality advisory, transactional and dispute resolution services. The major practice areas in our London office include banking and finance, commercial, corporate, dispute resolution, employment, intellectual property and real estate. Our key industry sectors include automotive, aviation & aerospace, banking & financial services, communications, energy & utilities, food & beverage, information technology, life sciences, media and sport.
When did the organisation start carrying out pro bono work?
The firm has carried out pro bono work for at least 30 years, although for much of this time it was an ad hoc basis without any effective tracking or coordination. Pro bono has been recognised for time recording purposes since about 1995, and has been incorporated in the firm’s strategy since 2001.
How are staff encouraged to become involved in pro bono work?
We consider pro bono work an important means of using our legal skills to give back to the community and as an opportunity for our lawyers to develop their skills and pursue areas of personal interest. Trainees are introduced and encouraged to participate in our pro bono and other corporate social responsibility programmes as part of their induction. On an on-going basis we reach out to our legal departments with pro bono opportunities in their respective fields. In addition to individual case work, we coordinate volunteers to regularly attend legal advice centres. Finally, we support individuals undertaking pro bono matters on their own initiative. Staff are encouraged to discuss their pro bono work and participation in corporate social activity programmes generally as part of their annual appraisals.
What type of pro bono work does the organisation carry out?
We take a broad approach to pro bono work in our London office that is largely guided by the individual interests of our lawyers. We send lawyers on a rotational basis to volunteer at legal advice centres including the University of the Arts Own-It Advice Clinic and an advice centre in South Westminster. We regularly take on pro bono matters through LawWorks programmes such as the Community Groups and Individual Case Work programmes and have lawyers who serve as volunteer mediators in LawWorks’ mediation programme. Our lawyers also do pro bono work for organisations such as the Red Cross and Oxfam. Last year we joined Leapfrog, a newly formed organisation dedicated to providing pro bono professional services to organisations and individuals developing carbon-reducing technology or programmes. Finally, we are in our second year of participating in the Lawyers in Schools programme, through which our lawyers teach the legal aspects of a citizenship curriculum to year 10 students. Although not strictly “pro bono”, we consider programmes like this a valuable opportunity to put our legal skills to work in our community and to meet the varying volunteer interests of our staff.
Please give details of a case that illustrates your organisation’s success with pro bono work?
Through the LawWorks Individual Case Work programme, our Dispute Resolution team, lead by Alexander Korff, took on the case of an individual who was accused of infringing copyright by sharing files using a peer-to-peer network. The client was an unemployed young man receiving benefits and living with his mother. He was threatened with a demand for £500 and a lawsuit if he failed to pay. Our lawyers were able to dissuade the company and their solicitors from pursuing the claim. The solicitors firm had been the subject of Which? and Law Society investigations in relation to these types of claims so we felt particularly gratified in helping this young man.
We recently provided pro bono advice to Ashton Hayes Parish Council (near Chester) for their community-owned renewable generation project. Ashton Hayes approached us via our association with Leapfrog as well as the RSK Group, spearheaded by Linda Fletcher. Since 2005, Ashton Hayes has been working to become England's first carbon neutral community and has already cut average household emissions of the 370 homes by 23% since May 2006. The aim of this innovative project is to develop community-owned electricity micro generation and supply the community with heat and power. Ashton Hayes applied for state funding under the Low Carbon Communities Challenge - a two-year research programme operated by the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change which is providing financial and advisory support to 20 test-bed communities, to enable the development of bespoke local schemes to improve energy efficiency. Ashton Hayes was one of the lucky communities so far to be awarded £500,000 by DECC to help convert itself to a Low Carbon Community. Jeremy Robinson provided preliminary advice on State Aid matters.
To read about Lorna Brazell, the Pro Bono Coordinator for Bird and Bird LLP, visit our website.
Joint Referrals Session with the FRU and BPBU
On 22nd March, we held a joint session with the Free Representation Unit and the Bar Pro Bono Unit on ‘Referring Clients to Pro Bono Agencies’. There were presentations from all three organisations on how we operate and the help we can offer clients. All the handouts and a podcast of the session are available on our website at http://www.lawworks.org.uk/index.php?id=podcasts.
The session will also be repeated on Wednesday May 26th at 6.30-7.30pm. If you are interested in attending this session, please register on our website at http://www.lawworks.org.uk/index.php?id=training or email Megan Pearson (mp@lawworks.org.uk) for more information.
Charity Law Training
On 3 and 10 March we held two training sessions on Charity Law, aimed at lawyers who volunteer through the LawWorks for Community Groups Project. Both sessions were very well received with over 80 attendees between the two sessions. We would like to thank the trainers: Simon Steeden, Leona Roche, Philippa Hart and Lawrie Simanowitz, all from Bates Wells Braithwaite, for all their efforts in making the sessions so interesting and informative, and to Eversheds and Olswang for hosting the sessions.
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| General Enquiries |
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Rebecca Hilsenrath |
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Megan Pearson |
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It’s great to be writing to you after the clocks have gone forward, so that after such a long, hard winter we can reasonably claim finally to have arrived at spring time. At the same time, coincidentally or not, the pace of life at LawWorks seems to have quickened. I hope many of you will have made it to our Legal Aid Question Time – details elsewhere in the newsletter, and earlier in the same day the Attorney General’s Student Awards – many congratulations to the winners. The evening before, many of us were at the Attorney General’s pro bono reception at Coutts and March, in general, was a busy month for LawWorks. One of the highlights was the second joint pro bono staff training day – attended by LawWorks, the Bar Pro Bono Unit, RCJ CAB, FRU and A4ID and kindly hosted by Taylor Wessing. We are now looking forward to the summer and hope you are booking your places for the June ball.