Connor Beaton traces pro bono’s long history & explores the initiatives turning tradition into action
Now in its 25th anniversary year, organisers of UK Pro Bono Week have approached this month’s events with history front and centre in their minds.
A quarter-century is a significant milestone for the initiative, which launched in England and Wales as National Pro Bono Week in 2001 with the backing of then Attorney General Peter Goldsmith (now Lord Goldsmith). Expanding to Scotland and Northern Ireland during the pandemic, it is now well-established as a UK-wide project, bringing together more solicitors, barristers and in-house lawyers each year.
But the organising committee has been reflecting not only on its own record, but also more widely on the history of pro bono work across these islands, which it has traced back hundreds of years—identifying it as one of the legal profession’s oldest traditions, and one which takes many forms, from volunteering at local advice clinics to powerfully advocating for human rights on the international stage.
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