Top UK companies make pro bono pledge with LawWorks
Legal Week reports
November 15, 2006 at 07:03 PM
2 minute read
Several of the UK's biggest companies have signed up to offer pro bono advice with the UK's main pro bono body, LawWorks, in a major breakthrough for the campaign group.
The in-house departments at investment banking giant Goldman Sachs, FTSE 100 companies Legal & General and Aviva and Transport for London have agreed to offer legal services with LawWorks for the first time. Energy company Npower and healthcare company Akzo Nobel have also signed up.
The in-house teams will now spend 12 months taking part in clinics across the country run by LawWorks – formerly the Solicitors Pro Bono Group – to provide legal advice to people who cannot afford legal advice but do not qualify for legal aid. Telecoms companies Vodafone and Sony Ericsson and Lloyd's of London are longstanding members of the scheme and have signed up again.
The development is significant for LawWorks, which began its push to sign up 12 bluechip companies in March. Employed lawyers have been slow to get involved in pro bono initiatives, despite the fact that the Law Society amended its rules in 1998 to allow them to give pro bono advice. The independent body now hopes to add another six or seven participating companies to its roster each year.
LawWorks chief executive Robert Gill told Legal Week: "We are very pleased with what we have got, and we want to go about getting more people on board in a very measured way."
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