LawWorks is taking part in Walk the Thames 2010
On Saturday the 20th and Sunday the 21st of February a dedicated team of LawWorks employees and supporters will be taking part in the 40 mile Walk the Thames. The nine of us will all be walking the whole way (Alison even intends to run some of it!) from the Thames Barrier (south side) to Hampton Court, with only the briefest of stops for lunch. If you would like to join our team (even for only part of the walk) please email Sarah Cox. If you can’t join us for one or both of the days then please consider sponsoring us by visiting our Just Giving page: http://www.justgiving.com/walkfurtherforprobono2010 and be sure to look out for photos of us in action in next month's newsletter!
Too ‘busy’ for Pro bono?!
- Do you have a minimum of three hours a month to spare?
- Do you feel you want to contribute more to your community using your legal skills?
- Do you want to enhance your legal skills?
- Do you live in the Manchester area?
If so, come along and meet like minded people and talk to those already involved with pro bono services in the Manchester area.
Wednesday 17th February from 6pm onwards at The College of Law, 2 New York Street, Manchester M1 4HJ
Email Janet Hart or call her on 07501 684 457
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Citizens Advice – AdviserNet
 AdviserNet is an information system produced by Citizens Advice which comes as a CD-ROM with monthly updates. Every Citizens Advice Bureau has access to AdviserNet as of right and many other advice agencies and some private practices pay to subscribe to the service.
AdviserNet covers all welfare issues from employment to benefits, housing to debt. Pro bono advisers in LawWorks Clinics often tell us that they find it a useful resource where there clinic has access. Further information about AdviserNet can be found here.
Last year we circulated a few emails to members about AdviserNet and the 63% discount Citizens Advice had offered to LawWorks members using it for pro bono work.
10 members have since signed up to the 28 day free trial and the offer is still available. If you are interested please contact: Mark Gummer, Citizens Advice’s AdviserNet consultant mark.gummer@citizensadvice.org.uk or alternatively contact a member of the LawWorks Clinics team.
Member Firm of the Month - Hogan & Hartson
 What are the main areas of law practised at this firm?
With more than 1,100 lawyers in 27 offices worldwide, we work across multiple practices, including corporate, finance, litigation, government regulation, tax, property, pensions and employment, intellectual property and competition.
When did the organisation start carrying out pro bono work?
Nearly 40 years ago, Hogan & Hartson became the first major firm to establish a separate practice group devoted exclusively to providing pro bono legal services. Since its inception in 1970, our Community Services Department (CSD) has focused on attracting, and staffing, both high impact matters raising issues of public importance and smaller cases addressing individual concerns.
How are staff encouraged to become involved in pro bono work?
With such a long history of pro bono activity, participation in the CSD programme is very much key to Hogan & Hartson’s culture. Informal and nominal targets, appraisals and positive recognition encourage participation. The CSD is comprised of one partner working full time heading the department, a senior associate assigned to the CSD full time for 18 months, a half-time senior associate, three full-time junior associates serving four-month rotations and two full-time legal assistants. One of the key purposes of the CSD is to encourage all attorneys to participate in pro bono matters and to provide assistance and support accordingly. Lawyers who are not assigned full time to the CSD are strongly encouraged to view pro bono work as a professional responsibility. The firm believes that work on pro bono matters not only serves the public interest, but also gives our lawyers invaluable training and experience, as well as a sense of shared responsibility to discharge our professional obligation to help those in need.
What type of pro bono work does the organisation carry out?
Our pro bono practice is particularly broad and varied, in terms of both the size of our clients as well as the nature of their activities. Clients range from very small but credible charities to multinational organisations and from humanitarian to environmental organisations. We participate actively in the international and domestic pro bono community.
The London office works with a broad variety of public interest organisations, civil and human rights projects, NGOs and other charitable and not-for-profit groups across diverse cultural and social situations.
We have built relationships with various civil rights, environmental, public interest and charitable organisations and NGOs, including: LawWorks, Cancer Research UK, Human Rights First, the Meningitis Trust, the International Senior Lawyers Project, the Public Interest Law Institute, the World Land Trust, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the National Parks Conservation Association, Public Counsel and Legal Counsel for the Elderly.
Between January and October 2009, the firm contributed nearly 70,000 hours of pro bono service worldwide through the work of 683 lawyers. In London specifically, in 2009 our office of around 70 fee earners provided over 1,798 hours of pro bono legal services – a 262% increase against the same period in 2008.
Please give details of a case that illustrates your organisation’s success with pro bono work?
The firm is currently acting for the Maldives Whale Shark Research Programme (MWSRP), a UK registered charity whose aim is to research, study and preserve the threatened whale shark and its habitat, as well as to promote community-focused conservation initiatives. The firm recently advised MWSRP on a number of matters, including commercial contracts, tax, litigation, corporate structuring and regulatory compliance issues.
We are currently advising MWSRP on tax-efficient structuring issues with respect to the establishment of a UK trading entity selling merchandise, on the VAT implications of such a venture and on the UK tax implications of accepting donations in the UK and in the Maldives. We are also advising MWSRP with respect to the establishment of a US “friends of” organisation, to facilitate tax efficient donations from US individuals and businesses.
To read about Philip Watkins, Hogan & Hartson's Pro Bono Coordinator visit our website.
Governor of the Month - Alex Shopov, Chair of the Governing Body, Northwold School
 I have been a Community Governor at Northwold School, a large primary school in Hackney, since 2005. The idea to become a school governor appealed to me because it allowed me to combine an interest in education with my work as a lawyer at Linklaters. Personally, I believe that educational opportunities are the most powerful means of positive social change which, if promoted in a considered and adequately weighted way, positively impact all other key social institutions.
Being a governor means taking the long-term perspective and involvement in both decision-making and scrutiny in the delivery of children’s education and although, at the beginning, it takes time to get up to speed, experience of complex people processes, which legal work inevitably brings, is a good starting point for this role (not dissimilar to non-executive directorship).
During my time at Northwold, our dedicated governing body team has been busy with an improvement strategy at the school, starting from finding a fantastic new headteacher through a number of tough recruitment processes, working to improve the quality of teaching through revising and strengthening the internal checks and management structures, an investment programme in learning facilities and re-launching the school image and vision, to name a few. Each of these has provided governors of different backgrounds with a new challenge and interesting and useful experiences and skills. OFSTED recognised the improvement efforts in their last review last year.
Schools depend on volunteers for their governance and oversight, so all lawyers, non-lawyers, parents and school staff can and should feel encouraged to get involved - education takes everyone.
LawWorks Quiz Corner
First of all, hearty congratulations to the following winners of the December quiz question. The anagram was of course ADVENT CALENDAR (advanced antler). Well done to Daisy East (Milbank Tweed), Paul Yates (Freshfields), Grant Goodlad (Farrar’s Building), Maggie Hine, Clive Tulloch (the Free Representation Unit) Susannah Mengesha (the Bar Pro Bono Unit), and Justin McClintock (24 Bedford Row).
Before our staff Christmas dinner, we sat down to a quiz of our own, involving a particularly challenging section which merged the faces of LawWorks staff members with those of their celebrity ‘lookalikes’. So here are three for you to have a go at. We need the name of the LawWorks person and the celebrity… (answers to martin.curtis@lawworks.org.uk)
Recipe Corner
Following her crowning as LawWorks Masterchef 2009 in the Christmas bake-off, Liz has very kindly provided her prize winning recipe for us to share with our readers. If you would like to know how to make Easy Mince & Almond Pastries please click here.
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Happy New Year (if February is not too late to wish you one) and welcome to the first newsletter of 2010. Just at the moment, I am particularly focused on the start of the year, albeit late in January, having just attended the annual LawWorks away day, which saw a lively debate by the trustees about plans for the coming months.