Ready for Pro Bono Week?

Lawyers across the country are busy preparing for the 14th annual National Pro Bono Week.

A multitude of events are due to take place next week (2-6 November), including walk-in surgeries, panel discussions, seminars, training events, open days and quiz nights (the Access to Justice Foundation is organising The Great Legal Quiz on 4 November). A drop-in session is even being held at Parliament to give MPs and caseworkers a chance to talk to experts about the potential pro bono support for constitutents.

Pro Bono Week, sponsored by the Law Society, the Bar Council and CILEx, celebrates the enormous range of vital legal work that lawyers take on free of charge, helping people who otherwise would not be able to afford legal advice and representation.

The Bar Pro Bono Unit, for example, has more than 3,600 volunteer barristers on its panel, including a third of all QCs in England and Wales, and has seen a continuous rise in the number of applications from members of the public who cannot obtain legal aid or pay for a barrister. The number of requests for assistance in family-child cases, for example, has risen by 305% between 2010 and 2014. The unit is holding an open morning on 4 November for members of the Bar, clerks, and referral agencies.

Meanwhile, Joseph Middleton of Doughty Street Chambers has won this year’s Bar Pro Bono Award for his international human rights work in connection with prisoners facing the death penalty in Malawi, and with a pilot programme for vulnerable prisoners in Belize.

Lord Goldsmith, the Bar Pro Bono Unit President and Chair of the Award judging panel, says: “Joseph’s work has not only saved the lives of many prisoners on death row, he has also created legal precedents restricting the use of the death penalty pending its eventual abolition.”