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| Vol 5 Issue 6 | |
| July 2009 |
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The highlight of the past month for LawWorks was certainly the Ball, of which you can read much more below. Congratulations to all the award winners and many thanks to everyone who came and supported the event. I, for one, had a really wonderful evening. There were other highlights, however, and one was the launch on June 10th of the CPS Pro Bono and Volunteers Network, which LawWorks was delighted to attend and support. It was really encouraging and exciting to see the launch of a pro bono programme by such a key legal organisation, and we are looking forward very much to working in partnership with them. Thanks also to Michael Napier, who was the guest speaker at the June Forum at Clifford Chance, which lasted for a record two hours and was extremely well attended, especially considering that it was held on such a beautifully sunny day. Which leads me to note that there is no August edition of LawWorks News and to wish you all, accordingly, a happy and sunny summer. May all your skies be cloudless. Rebecca Hilsenrath
After the dinner, the LawWorks Awards were announced and were presented by Paul Marsh, the Law Society President. There then followed dancing to the band E2 and also a Wii Archery Tournament with 2 people from each table taking part, more of that later! Thank you to everyone who attended the Ball and for making the event such a success. Roll on next year! All of the photos of the Awards Ball can be found here.
Paul Marsh (President of the Law Society) is presenting the Awards. Best Contribution by a Partnership - BPP Law School, Employment Lawyers Association, and Apex Trust - The Employment Law Telephone Advice Line (“ELTAL”) and Apex Trust Employment Advice Line (“APEAL”) provide quality employment law advice to individuals in need. APEAL launched in April 2007 in partnership with the Apex Trust (a national charity that promotes employment of people with criminal records), the Employment Lawyers Association (ELA), LawWorks and BPP Law School. The service provides initial advice to individuals who have had contact with the criminal justice system and are consequently facing challenges in their employment. ELTAL opened in response to an increasing need for general advice in this busy and complicated area of law. Best Contribution by a Regional Law Firm or Organisation - Norfolk Community Law Service - Norfolk Community Law Service’s Free Legal Advice rota scheme provides a very valuable pro bono service to the Norfolk community. 25 solicitors, 2 experienced specialist paralegals, and one barrister from 18 local firms of solicitors give their time pro bono to advise clients on various legal matters, providing professional advice to vulnerable individuals who might otherwise go without the legal services and protection they need. Best Contribution by an Individual - Tina Buchan – Nabarro LLP - Tina is a legal secretary and PA to the firms' Managing Partner. She also organises Nabarro's weekly Advice Clinic at St Luke's Community Centre in Islington. She attends the Clinic every week on her own time, sits in on advice sessions and deals with all the administration of the Clinic. Tina also takes an active role in the future of the clinic; attending meetings with IPR, LawWorks, and the Nabarro Corporate Social Responsibility Committee, thereby shaping the way Nabarro LLP does Pro Bono. Without Tina's input, the Clinic would never have been so successful. Best Contribution by a Law Firm or Organisation - Taylor Wessing LLP - Taylor Wessing LLP is committed to and enthusiastic about investing in the community through pro bono work and charitable initiatives. A Pro Bono Committee implements the strategy by overseeing and developing legal pro bono work, including the LawWorks Blackfriars Legal Advice Clinic, which is organised and staffed by Taylor Wessing. Since April 2008 we estimate the value of time given across the firm to this clinic alone to be in the region of £200,000. The Blackfriars Settlement’s services include a free weekly legal advice clinic, which is also organised and staffed by Taylor Wessing. There are currently 47 legal advisors, as well as 3 paralegals and support staff who assist. Taylor Wessing also takes on individual clients through LawWorks. Lesley Mitchell was awarded the Most Outstanding Contribution to LawWorks Award. Lesley has been volunteering as an Admin Assistant for LawWorks North for the last 12 months and has become an invaluable member of the team. She gives between 6 and 8 hours of her time every week, despite the fact the she is also undertaking the final year of her law degree.
All of the photos of the Awards Ball can be found here.
With barely enough time for their dinner to settle down, two volunteers from each table threw themselves into a virtual archery tournament. Last year’s tennis champions, Becks Wilkie and Nick Hanning, dissolved their winning partnership with the result being that neither progressed beyond the first round. But with the top two seeds out so early the tournament was blown wide open and a critical crowd soon gathered behind the archers, eager to see who would come to the fore and in some cases whether teams could even manage to get a single arrow in the target. Ultimately an unorthodox team of three came out on top. Jessica Reid of Mills & Reeve and Tim Haddon of GSK got through to the final, at which point Jessica had to rush off home, leaving Tim to call on his wife, Carolyn, of Charles Russell, to guide him through to victory in the final. The victorious couple were presented with some high quality home archery equipment as a mark of their achievement. We hope to see them back next year, prepared to defend their title.
I have spent the last year working for a local PCT helping to promote a new £20m Health Centre, using links within the local and wider communities, and arranging workshops and roadshows for members of the public and PCT staff. Having recently completed my Law Degree, I am presently obtaining my LPC part time. I worked within the manufacturing industry for a number of years, culminating as production manager for a major blue chip company within the local area, and spent the last two years with the company helping them both to increase production and turnover and move to a new purpose built facility. I am thrilled to have been given the opportunity to work for LawWorks North, and I look forward to meeting many new friends and contacts within the Pro Bono profession.
LawWorks for Community Groups and Stockport CVS would like to continue in developing more free Practical Advice Talks in the region and if you would like to provide a legal seminar for community groups in Stockport, such as Social Enterprises and CICs, Employment – Disciplinaries & Grievances or Data Protection, please don’t hesitate to contact Kristina Velcikova for further details. LawWorks for Community Groups – Practical Advice Talks for Kensington and Chelsea Social Council Johanna Johnson, an Associate from White & Case (Europe) LLP, kindly volunteered in delivering the presentation on Employment Law Overview to around 15 trustees from various not-for-profit organisations. Her highly informative and interesting talk was described as ‘comprehensive and detailed whilst remaining simple to follow and understand’ by one attendee and was greatly appreciated by both LawWorks and Kensington and Chelsea Social Council. All attendees found the talk helpful and have already asked LawWorks to organise another legal seminar in autumn, which would explore employment law issues in depth. If you are an experienced lawyer in the area of employment law and would like to assist us with this, please don’t hesitate to contact Kristina Velcikova for further details. LawWorks for Community Groups – London Practical Advice Talks The two legal talks were provided to 44 attendees, who were volunteers, employees and trustees representing around 38 different not-for-profit organisations from around London. The first legal seminar on Employment – Grievances and Disciplinaries was kindly presented by Johanna Johnson, who is an Associate at White & Case (Europe) LLP. Her one and a half hour long talk resulted in an interesting and very useful discussion. Some attendees commented on her talk as follows: “This was very clear and easy to understand as Johanna walked through the presentation. Her handling of the questions was excellent and her inclusion of recent case law was helpful. Question and Answer section was very useful to many delegates and where the expertise of our speaker came to the fore.” The second presentation on Understanding Contracts and Public Service Delivery was delivered by Stephanie Biden, a Solicitor from Bates Wells & Braithwaite. Her very informative talk received great feedback from our attendees as well: This was a very useful and detailed talk. Content would merit working up as an advice booklet or document to assist small organizations trying to understand what agreements they are getting into. Very good indeed. LawWorks is very grateful to Stephanie, Johanna and White & Case LLP for making the half day such an interesting and well received event. LawWorks Clinics Training Spring 2009 We appreciate everyone giving up their time for this activity and would like to thank the following:- Ahmad Butt from Reynards Solicitors , John Hine, Sharif Shivji and Matthew Smith of PILARS, Colin Stutt and Grace Nicholls of the Legal Services Commission, Clare Norriss of BP, Michael Carter of the Bar Standards Board, Elaine Banton of 7 Bedford Row, Sarah Salmon, Stephanie Smith and Justin Bates from Arden Chambers, Jason Freeman of the Office of Fair Trading, Roy Kuku and Alex Eastwood from Disability Law Service, Tony Brown of Withy King, María Teresa Muriel Sánchez, Ned Beale of Olswang, Colin Cormack and Janet Slater of Tower Hamlets Council , Rafiqul Hoque and John Harkin of Tower Hamlets Homes, Charlotte White, Ian Curry and Ruth Ormston of Wragge & Co, Maggie Pether of Islington Peoples Rights, an Ann Bevitt, Amina Adam and Suzanne Horne of Morrison & Foerster. We would also like to thank to all our member firms and their pro bono coordinators and assistants who have supported us continually during this semester and made the whole spring 2009 training programme happen. Without their help and wonderful assistance LawWorks would not be able to offer such an extensive semester. Our thanks go to following hosts:- Allen & Overy, Bates Wells and Braithwaite, Berwin Leighton Paisner, Bird & Bird, Dechert, Dewey & LeBoeuf, Freshfields, Herbert Smith, Holman Fenwick Willan, K&L Gates, Linklaters, Lovells, Mayer Brown, Morrison & Foerster, Norton Rose, Olswang, Reed Smith, Simmons & Simmons, Taylor Wessing, Travers Smith and Wragge & Co. If your firm would like to host a LawWorks Clinics training session in autumn 2009 or would like to provide an experienced lawyer with the expertise in one of the specialist areas of law we usually cover for clinic volunteering purposes, please don’t hesitate to contact Kristina Velcikova. We are in the process of drafting the autumn 2009 training programme and will send out further details later in the summer. Please note, there are no training sessions being planned for months of July and August. Also, for those of you who were not able to attend our training sessions, we would direct you to all our training materials available online – please click here. On this page there is a link at the bottom of the page and you will need to log in the same as for registering for training. We are now in the process of producing podcasts for many of the sessions.
The applicants asked LawWorks for help in overturning the judgment. We placed their case with Mark Handley at Debevoise and Plimpton. Mark met with the applicants before working in collaboration with a Bar Pro Bono Unit barrister who persuaded the brewery to agree to a consent order which set aside the judgment. One of the applicants expressed his relief to LawWorks following the removal of the default judgment: ‘I dread to think of the outcome, it was all such a worry. I have nothing but praise for the service provided.’
With the London, Newbury and Brighton walks all recently completed, now is the time to think about getting involved somewhere else, perhaps much closer to home for many of you. On 24 September the Manchester and Birmingham walks will be taking place. There is also one in Hastings and talk of walks in Cardiff and Liverpool also being organised (dates TBC). Get in touch if you or your organisation would be interested in any of these events. The ongoing development of the regional legal support trusts means that on 30 September there will be another two walks to choose from. The North East Legal Support Trust is organising a 5km stroll in Newcastle (contact paul.mckeown@northumbria.ac.uk) and simultaneously walkers will be tackling double the distance in Leeds (contact northeastlegaltrust@bpp.com).
The staff were guided around the school and assisted by a number of prefects and given all the materials we needed to help give a new lease of life to various parts of the building. The weather just about held and allowed us to spend the whole day outside, painting everything from window frames and picnic benches to lampposts and gazebos. A few pictures below show the extent of our work and the not inconsiderable decorating talents of certain members of the team. LawWorks would like to thank Addleshaw Goddard, and Marcus Jamieson-Pond in particular, for involving us in their volunteering project.
Pro Bono Hit by the Recession? University of Birmingham sets up Pro Bono Unit LawWorks Awards ProBono Excellence
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I joined LawWorks North at the beginning of June to cover for Rebecca Sheldon who is currently on maternity leave. I will be working to help raise the profile of LawWorks North within the Region, and ultimately aiming to increase regional membership. Two short term projects are the Manchester Legal Walk to be held on Thursday 24th September and the joint national Pro Bono conference to be held at the Civil Justice centre on Tuesday 10th November.
LawWorks Mediation
