Law: More work and no pay

Charity isn't a dirty word and lawyers can gain by waiving their fees, says Grania Langdon-Down

OFFERING legal help for free should be seen by lawyers as a professional obligation and not as some "idiosyncratic expression of charitable goodwill", according to a rallying cry from the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Bingham of Cornhill.

He has given his enthusiastic support to the Solicitors' Pro Bono Group (SPBG) as it prepares to launch a membership drive next month among the 10,000 law firms in England and Wales.

Lord Bingham said solicitors across the country had always carried out work pro bono publico - for the public good - but it tended to be done piecemeal and ad hoc, depending on the charitable instincts of the individual or firm.

In the SPBG's first newsletter, he says: "Firms have been slow to publicise their pro bono work, perhaps for fear of encouraging competition, perhaps out of consideration for their clients who do pay full fees. Much valuable pro bono work has been born to blush unseen.

"In this, as in other ways, we have lagged behind some other jurisdictions. In the United States, particularly, but also in some parts of the Commonwealth, such as New South Wales, the performance of a measure of unpaid work has come to be accepted, not as an idiosyncratic expression of charitable goodwill but as firm professional obligation, a duty accepted by those who enjoy the great privilege of practising law.

"No practising lawyer is unaware of the centuries-old taunt that the only professional concern of lawyers is their professional remuneration. There can be no more effective riposte than a willingness to work, part of the time, for nothing."

Certainly, the taunts of politicians about "fat-cat lawyers" stung the many solicitors who do pro bono work - estimated by a Law Society survey to be worth about pounds 140m a year.

For Peta Sweet, SPBG's director, the difficulty with promoting pro bono work is that "lawyers automatically see problems rather than potential. You can find a lot of cynicism and lots of politics - if we highlight things that are being done, firms can be accused of self-promotion. So we try to sell the message that it is not just about giving something for free. There is something they can get out of it, too - both for themselves as individuals and for the community they serve."

A former employment lawyer, Sweet remembered taking on cases for clients whose money or legal aid ran out. "If you have a grain of humanity, you cannot just turn them away when their funds run out. This is why so many small firms do pro bono work because that is their client base.

"But some parts of the profession have lost that tradition as firms have become larger and more commercially based. What they need to see is that pro bono work offers their lawyers broader experiences, which can only help in recruitment and training."

She hopes the SPBG's first conference, on 6 June in London, will provide a forum for exchanging information and experiences and exploring new ways of offering free legal services.

Last year, City firm Lovell White Durrant, which provides free legal services in Commonwealth/Caribbean "death row" cases, appointed solicitor Yasmin Waljee as its first full-time pro bono officer. She receives about 10 to 15 calls a week from a wide range of community groups, charities and individuals, who she then matches with one of the many volunteers from within the firm.

Waljee explains her role in Legal Network Television's 500th programme, Training and Development Today, which focuses on the increasingly important place pro bono work has in professional practice and development.

She tells the programme: "The stimulus has come from the young solicitors within the firm who are particularly keen to put something back into the community and want to see a difference being made to individuals' lives. As a result, this has brought about a pro bono culture and a more positive environment within the firm."

For Tony Willis, partner in the City firm Clifford Chance and chair of the SPBG, the important message is that pro bono work should be "imbedded" into the culture of every firm and into legal education. He stressed how important it was for the SPBG, set up last September, to strike the right note in promoting the better management of pro bono work.

"It is not a case of us prancing round the regions telling them what to do," he said. "We have more to learn from them than vice versa and if we don't get that right then we will engender some hostility. Smaller firms already tend to do the most pro bono work and the big commercial practices have a lot to learn from them."

Turning to legal education, he added: "It has always distressed me that solicitors, when they are training, do not necessarily come through with a feeling that they have an obligation to help the community."

Professor Nigel Savage, chief executive of the College of Law, echoed this concern. "Ideas of civic responsibilities and public duties disappeared under the drive to make lots of Arthur Daley lawyers out to make money for their firms," he said.

However, there is also a concern that the Government would merely use pro bono work as an excuse to cut legal aid. Rosaleen Kilbane, partner in the Birmingham legal aid practice McGrath & Co, said: "There is the argument that as long as solicitors are prepared to do this work for nothing there will be no need to arrange payment for it, particularly in the field of benefits tribunals.

"But are we supposed to sacrifice the goodwill of our clients in the hope that funding will be made available? In the current climate, there is likely to be less and less funding available."

Legal Network Television, 2 Breams Buildings, London EC4A 1DP (0171 611 7400). Solicitors Pro Bono Group, 15 St Swithin's Lane, London EC4N 8AL (0171 929 5601)