By John Malpas
The Government is set to invite City and large commercial firms to support its community legal service by providing pro bono advice over the Internet.
Geoff Hoon, the Minister of State at the Lord Chancellor's Department (LCD), has told Legal Week that the community legal service will provide business lawyers with the opportunity to channel pro bono work into communities they cannot normally reach.
The framework for the service is contained in the Access to Justice Bill, which is currently making its way through parliament.
The Bill will establish a Legal Services Commission which will have responsibility for co-ordinating the various sources of legal advice and assistance on offer in the community.
Hoon said it was difficult for City and business lawyers who wanted to do pro bono work to get into the community because they were based in the wrong place and were always travelling.
But he said the Government was exploring ways of making use of advances in IT technology to make legal advice more accessible to the public.
"Some of the mechanisms we are building into the community service could address this problem – for example, lawyers could give advice over the Internet."
Hoon praised the work being undertaken by the Solicitors Pro Bono Group to promote pro bono work, but said he believed the lack of a recognised way of offering free advice was holding some people back from doing it.
"In some firms it is senior partners and solicitors who do it, while in others it is trainees," he said.
Hoon suggested a practice rule with guidelines for doing pro bono work could be the way forward.
"That is a matter for the Law Society, but I can see that it is a possible way of resolving the difficulty."
The American Bar Association has long recommended that US attorneys do at least 50 hours of pro bono advice every year.
Yasmin Waljee, Lovell White Durrant's pro bono officer, said: "I think the Law Society could do much more to encourage solicitors to do pro bono work.
"I don't think solicitors should be forced to do it, but we need to get into a situation where it is seen as a core part of the solicitors' practice."