DOCSLIB.ORG

Report on the Fifth National Law Firm Pro Bono Survey

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Report on the Fifth National Law Firm Pro Bono Survey Report on the Fifth National Law Firm Pro Bono Survey Australian firms with fifty or more lawyers March 2017 Australian Pro Bono Centre The Law Building, University of New South Wales UNSW Sydney NSW 2052 Website: probonocentre.org.au Tel: +61 2 9385 7381 Fax +61 2 9385 7375 Email: [email protected] About the AUSTRALIAN PRO BONO CENTRE The Australian Pro Bono Centre is an independent centre of expertise that aims to grow the capacity of the Australian legal profession to provide pro bono legal services that are focused on increasing access to justice for socially disadvantaged and/or marginalised persons, and furthering the public interest. While the Centre does not provide legal advice, its policy and research work supports the provision of free legal services and informs government of the role that it can play to encourage the growth of pro bono legal services. The Centre's work is guided by a board and advisory council that include representatives of community legal organisations, pro bono clearing houses, the private legal profession, universities and government. Established in 2002 as an independent, not-for-profit organisation at the University of New South Wales, it was envisaged that the Centre would: “Stimulate and encourage the development, expansion and co-ordination of pro bono services, as well as offering practical assistance for pro bono service providers (and potential providers). The Centre would play the key roles of facilitating pro bono practice and enabling the collection and exchange of information.” The strategies that the Centre employs to grow pro bono capacity include: Strengthening the place of pro bono legal work within the Australian legal profession as an integral part of legal practice by • being a leading advocate for pro bono legal work; • promoting the pro bono ethos and increasing the visibility of pro bono legal work; • developing policies and advocating for measures to encourage an increase in the quality and amount of pro bono legal work; and • producing resources and sharing information in Australia, regionally and internationally, that builds pro bono culture in the Australian legal profession and participation by Australian lawyers in pro bono legal work. Providing practical assistance to facilitate, and remove barriers to, the provision of pro bono legal services by • undertaking research on how pro bono legal assistance can best respond to unmet legal need, including the identification of best practice in its provision; • engaging in policy development, advocacy and law reform on issues that have an impact on pro bono legal services; • providing practical advice to lawyers and law firms to support their efforts to increase the quantity, quality and impact of their pro bono work; • informing community organisations about the way pro bono operates in Australia; and • leading in the development of new and innovative pro bono project and partnership models. Promoting the pro bono legal work of the Australian legal profession to the general public by • informing members of the public through the media and presentations about the pro bono legal work undertaken by members of the Australian legal profession. The Australian Pro Bono Centre operates with the financial assistance it receives from the Commonwealth and State and Territories Attorney-General Departments, and support from the Faculty of Law at the University of New South Wales. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-commercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Australia licence http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ 1 Contents About the Australian Pro Bono Centre .................................................................................. 1 Acknowledgments ...............................................................................................................4 Executive Summary .............................................................................................................5 Chapter Highlights ...............................................................................................................8 Methodology ..................................................................................................................... 15 1 Who are we? .............................................................................................................. 16 How many firms in Australia have fifty or more FTE lawyers? ........................................... 16 How many lawyers do we have? ......................................................................................... 17 Where are we located? ....................................................................................................... 17 What if we are an international firm or going through a merger? ..................................... 18 “International law firms” ............................................................................................. 19 Law firm mergers ......................................................................................................... 20 2 How much “pro bono legal work” do we do?............................................................... 21 What is “pro bono legal work”? .......................................................................................... 21 How many pro bono hours per lawyer do we do? .............................................................. 22 Change in individual firms’ reported pro bono hours per lawyer from 2014 to 2016 . 25 Proportion of lawyers individually meeting the Target ............................................... 26 How many hours of pro bono were provided in total? ....................................................... 26 How much of this work was provided “without charge”? ........................................... 28 Pro bono as a percentage of total billable hours ......................................................... 28 How many lawyers participate in pro bono? ...................................................................... 29 Change in individual firms’ participation rate from 2014 to 2016 .............................. 31 Partner participation.................................................................................................... 32 3 What type of pro bono legal work do we do? .............................................................. 33 Who do we help? ................................................................................................................. 33 In what areas of law and practice do we provide the most pro bono assistance? ............. 35 Areas of focus for pro bono programs ......................................................................... 37 In what areas of law and practice did we not assist? .......................................................... 37 Where do we provide pro bono assistance? ....................................................................... 39 Pro bono assistance for clients in RRR areas ............................................................... 39 Pro bono for international clients ................................................................................ 40 2 4 How do we partner with others? ................................................................................ 42 Where do we source our pro bono legal work? .................................................................. 42 New and innovative approaches to pro bono delivery ................................................ 44 Do we work with pro bono referral organisations and schemes? ...................................... 44 How do we offer secondments? ......................................................................................... 46 Number of partner organisations ................................................................................ 46 Quantity of secondments ............................................................................................. 46 Structure of secondments ............................................................................................ 47 Do we partner with in-house lawyers? ............................................................................... 48 5 How do we plan for pro bono? .................................................................................... 50 Which factors are key to the success of our pro bono programs? ..................................... 50 What are the challenges we face? ...................................................................................... 51 Best practice pro bono and areas for improvement .................................................... 51 Do we set internal targets for our pro bono legal work? .................................................... 52 Do we create an operational budget for our pro bono legal program? ............................. 54 How do we manage external disbursements in pro bono matters? ................................... 55 The cost of disbursements ........................................................................................... 56 Disbursement Assistance Schemes .............................................................................. 56 How do we credit lawyers’ pro bono time? ........................................................................ 57 Pro bono time: billable hours vs non-billable hours ..................................................... 57 How else do we recognise our lawyers’ pro bono work? ................................................... 59 How do we evaluate our
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Justice for All? an Examination of the Civil Legal Needs of the District of Columbia’S Low-Income Hon
    JUSTICE FORE An Examination of the Civil ALL?Legal Needs of the District of Columbia’s Low-Income Community District of Columbia Access to Justice Commission | With the assistance of DLA Piper llp (us) Table of Contents Letter from Peter B. Edelman, Chair, DC Access to Justice Commission v I – Executive Summary 1 A. Overview of the Issue 1 B. The Importance of Legal Representation 1 C. Legal Services for the Low-Income Community Benefit All District Residents 2 D. The DC Access to Justice Commission and This Report 2 E. The Methodology 2 F. Our Findings 3 1. Substantial Obstacles to Overcome 3 2. The Extensive, Varied and Complex Civil Legal Needs Confronting the Low-Income Community 3 3. The Capacity of Legal Services Providers 10 4. Challenges Facing the Legal Services Network—A Call to Action 11 G. Conclusion 14 II – Introduction 15 A. Legal Issues Confronting the Low-Income Community—Too Important to Leave to Chance 15 B. Creation and Work of the DC Access to Justice Commission 15 C. Legal Services Save Money 16 D. Structure of the Report 16 III – Methodology and Recommendations for Future Study 17 A. Methodology 17 1. Written Survey 18 2. Data Collection 18 3. Community Interviews 18 4. Court Statistics 18 5. Listening Sessions 19 6. Additional Reports and Data 19 Table of Contents | i B. Areas for Further Study 19 1. The Legal Needs of Moderate-Income Individuals 19 2. The Quality of Legal Services 19 3. Future Areas of Work for the Legal Services Network 20 4. Accessibility of Governmental Institutions 20 IV – The District’s Low-Income Community 21 A.
    [Show full text]
  • Infocuria Case-Law English (En) Home > Search Form > List Of
    1/14/2021 CURIA - Documents InfoCuria Case-law English (en) Home > Search form > List of results > Documents Language of document : English ECLI:EU:C:2021:22 Provisional text OPINION OF ADVOCATE GENERAL SZPUNAR delivered on 14 January 2021 (1) Case C‑762/19 SIA ‘CV-Online Latvia’ v SIA ‘Melons’ (Request for a preliminary ruling from the Rīgas apgabaltiesas Civillietu tiesas kolēģija (Regional Court, Riga (Civil Law Division), Latvia)) (Reference for a preliminary ruling – Legal protection of databases – Directive 96/9/EC – Article 7 – ‘Sui generis’ right of makers of databases – Prevention of ‘extraction’ or ‘reutilisation’ by third parties, without the maker’s permission, of the whole or a substantial part of the contents of the database – Database available on a website – Display by the operator of a search engine of a hyperlink to that website and of meta tags containing information present in the database) Introduction 1. In the family of intellectual property rights, the sui generis right to protection of databases is one of the youngest members. Its introduction relates to digitisation and to the arrival of the internet. The exponential increase in the quantity of information available as a consequence of digitisation has made it particularly useful, and therefore economically advantageous, to arrange that information in databases that may be consulted online. At the same time, in the digital environment, it is particularly easy to make a copy, of perfect quality, of the data in a database at negligible cost and thus to derive an undue profit from the efforts of others. A mechanism for protection has thus been established in EU law.
    [Show full text]
  • National Cyber Security Strategy Guidelines
    National Cyber Security Strategy Guidelines Tallinn 2013 This publication is a product of the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence (the Centre). It does not necessarily reflect the policy or the opinion of the Centre or NATO. The Centre may not be held responsible for any loss or harm arising from the use of information contained in this publication and is not responsible for the content of the external sources, including external websites referenced in this publication. Digital or hard copies of this publication may be produced for internal use within NATO and for personal or educational use when for non-profit and non-commercial purpose, provided that copies bear a full citation. www.ccdcoe.org [email protected] Prepared by Anna-Maria Osula and Kadri Kaska About NATO CCD COE The NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence (NATO CCD COE) is an international military organisation accredited in 2008 by NATO’s North Atlantic Council as a “Centre of Excellence”. Located in Tallinn, Estonia, the Centre is currently supported by the Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia, Spain, the United Kingdom and the USA as Sponsoring Nations and Austria as a Contributing Participant. The Centre is neither part of NATO’s command or force structure, nor is it funded by NATO. However, it is part of a wider framework supporting NATO Command Arrangements. NATO CCD COE’s mission is to enhance capability, cooperation and information sharing between NATO, NATO member states and NATO’s partner countries in the area of cyber defence by virtue of research, education and consultation.
    [Show full text]
  • Legal Aid Queensland's Review of Civil Law Services (PDF
    QUEENSLAND PUBLIC INTEREST LAW CLEARING HOUSE INCORPORATED SUBMISSION TO LEGAL AID QUEENSLAND'S REVIEW OF CIVIL LAW SERVICES INTRODUCTION What is QPILCH? The Queensland Public Interest Law Clearing House Incorporated (QPILCH) is a non- profit community based legal service that coordinates the provision of pro bono legal services in public interest matters. QPILCH also provides some direct services through targeted projects, including the Homeless Persons’ Legal Clinic, the Administrative Law Clinic, the Refugee and Immigration Legal Support Project and the Consumer Law Advice Clinic. Why did QPILCH prepare this submission? Clients of our referral services and clinics who suffer disadvantage regularly need to access legal aid. In addition, Legal Aid Queensland regularly refers matters to QPILCH where applicants are ineligible for aid. QPILCH only assists in civil law matters. While QPILCH is able to provide advice and minor extended assistance through the clinics and refers cases to member firms for representation, we are not a substitute for legal aid. Rather, we only assist applicants who are ineligible for legal aid. We support all attempts to increase access to the legal system. INITIAL RESPONSE TO DISCUSSION PAPER We commend Legal Aid Queensland for taking the initiative in inviting public comment on its consultation paper. However, we are of the view that much more can and should be done to understand current civil law services, particularly those provided by LAQ, community legal services (CLCs) and pro bono law schemes (coordinated
    [Show full text]
  • The Future of the United Kingdom's Highest Courts
    The Future of the United Kingdom's Highest Courts Andrew Le Sueur Barber Professor of Jurisprudence, The University of Birmingham Richard Cornes Lecturer in Public Law, University of Essex Funded by the ISBN: 1 903903 03 3 Published by The Constitution Unit School of Public Policy UCL (University College London) 29/30 Tavistock Square London WClH 9QU Tel: 020 7679 4977 Fax: 020 7679 4978 Email: [email protected] Web: www.ucl.ac.uWconstirution-unid O Andrew Le Sueur and Richard Cornes, 2001 This report is sold subject to the condition that is shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any fonn of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. First published June 2001 Contents Preface ....................................................................................................................................................6 The UK top courts project ................................................................................................................6 Other publications from the project ............................................................................................... 6 Acknowledgements ..........................................................................................................................7 A note on terminology .....................................................................................................................7
    [Show full text]
  • Overvaluing Uniformity
    FROST_BOOK 10/20/2008 12:40 PM VIRGINIA LAW REVIEW VOLUME 94 NOVEMBER 2008 NUMBER 7 ARTICLES OVERVALUING UNIFORMITY Amanda Frost* INTRODUCTION................................................................................. 1568 I. UNIFORMITY AND THE FEDERAL COURTS .............................. 1574 A. Supreme Court Case Selection............................................ 1575 B. Original Federal Question Jurisdiction ............................. 1576 C. Exclusive Federal Question Jurisdiction ........................... 1577 D. Specialized Courts ............................................................... 1577 E. Congressional Power to Strip the Supreme Court of Appellate Jurisdiction.......................................................... 1578 F. Conflicts Among the Lower Courts................................... 1578 II. QUESTIONING THE UNIFORMITY RATIONALE........................ 1579 A. Arguments in Favor of Uniformity .................................... 1582 B. Questioning the Case for Uniformity................................. 1584 1. Legitimacy...................................................................... 1584 a. Legal Legitimacy..................................................... 1585 b. Sociological Legitimacy.......................................... 1591 c. Moral Legitimacy.................................................... 1594 2. Nonuniformity’s Effect on Multi-State Actors............ 1597 3. Predictability.................................................................. 1600 4. Forum Shopping...........................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Litigation Strategies for Intellectual Property Cases Leading Lawyers on Analyzing Key Decisions and Effectively Litigating IP Cases
    I N S I D E T H E M I N D S Litigation Strategies for Intellectual Property Cases Leading Lawyers on Analyzing Key Decisions and Effectively Litigating IP Cases 2015 EDITION 2015 Thomson Reuters/Aspatore All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, except as permitted under Sections 107 or 108 of the U.S. Copyright Act, without prior written permission of the publisher. This book is printed on acid free paper. Material in this book is for educational purposes only. This book is sold with the understanding that neither any of the authors nor the publisher is engaged in rendering legal, accounting, investment, or any other professional service. Neither the publisher nor the authors assume any liability for any errors or omissions or for how this book or its contents are used or interpreted or for any consequences resulting directly or indirectly from the use of this book. For legal advice or any other, please consult your personal lawyer or the appropriate professional. The views expressed by the individuals in this book (or the individuals on the cover) do not necessarily reflect the views shared by the companies they are employed by (or the companies mentioned in this book). The employment status and affiliations of authors with the companies referenced are subject to change. For customer service inquiries, please e-mail [email protected]. If you are interested in purchasing the book this chapter was originally included in, please visit www.legalsolutions.thomsonreuters.com Managing Litigation in the Ever-Changing Landscape of Copyright and Trademark Law Lisa T.
    [Show full text]
  • 2. Needs Analysis University Foreign Language Course Design Is a Huge Challenge for Foreign Language Teachers and Course Designers
    International Journal of Arts and Sciences 3(18): 186-197 (2010) CD-ROM. ISSN: 1944-6934 © InternationalJournal.org Legal English Courses at Universities. Should We Prepare Students For Certificate Exams or Communication in the Work Place? Aleksandra Luczak, Kozminski University, Poland Abstract: International certificate exams are regarded as an objective, reliable and equal way of assessing the students’ knowledge of foreign languages at the end of their university language course. All stakeholders seem to be satisfied with this kind of assessment, i.e. students, school authorities as well as teachers. Certificate exams courses are quite easy to structure for teachers, students leave universities with internationally recognised diplomas - proofs of their language competence which also win renown for universities. If we, however, think about the students’ target needs, we may observe a divergence and may need to make difficult choices. The first and most striking variance concerns the content to teach. Legal English courses leading towards Legal English exams will develop vocabulary, reading skill, and to limited extent – writing. They prepare students for a British exam, so they acquaint them with common law concepts and procedures. However, Polish students come from a civil law tradition country and in the future they will most probably work in law office environment where they will have to explain the concepts of Polish or EU legal system in English or draft on these concepts in English. Unfortunately, no objective measures, apart from these set by the teachers themselves, for assessing the learning outcomes of that part of Legal English courses exist. Perhaps, they will be verified in the long-run by the students themselves after they embark on their lawyer’s careers.
    [Show full text]
  • The Bungling of Justice Nadon's Appointment to the Supreme Court of Canada
    The Supreme Court Law Review: Osgoode’s Annual Constitutional Cases Conference Volume 67 (2014) Article 3 The unB gling of Justice Nadon’s Appointment to the Supreme Court of Canada Hugo Cyr Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.osgoode.yorku.ca/sclr This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License. Citation Information Cyr, Hugo. "The unB gling of Justice Nadon’s Appointment to the Supreme Court of Canada." The Supreme Court Law Review: Osgoode’s Annual Constitutional Cases Conference 67. (2014). http://digitalcommons.osgoode.yorku.ca/sclr/vol67/iss1/3 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at Osgoode Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in The uS preme Court Law Review: Osgoode’s Annual Constitutional Cases Conference by an authorized editor of Osgoode Digital Commons. The Bungling of Justice Nadon’s Appointment to the Supreme Court of Canada Hugo Cyr* I. INTRODUCTION On April 22, 2013, the Honourable Justice Morris Fish wrote to the then Minister of Justice, the Honourable Robert Nicholson, to advise that he would retire from the Supreme Court of Canada and that his retirement would be effective August 31, 2013, a mere three months before he reached the mandatory retirement age.1 Despite four months’ notice, the federal government waited until the last minute to appoint a replacement. Indeed, just a week before the Fall term hearings were to begin at the Supreme Court, the Prime Minister announced on September
    [Show full text]
  • This Is the Published Version: Available from Deakin Research
    This is the published version: Trimble, Allison J., Cranston, Neil and Allen, Jeanne M. 2012, School principals and education law : what do they know, what do they need to know?, Leading & managing, vol. 18, no. 2, pp. 46‐61. Available from Deakin Research Online: http://hdl.handle.net/10536/DRO/DU:30062774 Reproduced with the kind permission of the copyright owner. Copyright : 2012, Australian Council for Educational Leaders Leading & Managing, Vol. 18, No.2, 2012, pp. 46-61 School Principals and Education Law: What do they know, what do they need to know? 47 School Principals and Education Law: Preamble The genesis of this study was a playground conversation between the first author and a primary What do they know, what do they school principal who advised her that physical contact between teachers and students was banned because 'touching a child was against the law'. The principal's misunderstanding of the law on need to know? non-sexual physical contact between teachers and students raised questions about the impact of the law on the work of school principals, the legal issues they dealt with, and their understandings about legal matters. As a qualified lawyer, the author's interest in examining principals' education ALLISON J. TRIMBLE law knowledge was triggered. University afTasmania Ernail: atrimble@posto!fice.utas,edu.au Introduction and Background NEIL CRANSTON There is little doubt that in recent years the roles and responsibilities of school leaders have UniversityafTasmania become more complex and challenging (Cranston & Ehrich, 2009). Indeed. the recently released Email: [email protected] National Professional Standard for Principals in Australia which 'sets out what principals are expected to know, understand and do' noted that principals needed to 'embrace uncertain, JEANNE M.
    [Show full text]
  • 8 Coordinating Pro Bono Work in the Firm
    Introduction The Australian Pro Bono Manual A practice guide and resource kit for law firms Edited by Jill Anderson Published by National Pro Bono Resource Centre and Victoria Law Foundation First Published October 2003 ISBN 1 876045 10 8 © National Pro Bono Resource Centre 2003 Author/editor: Jill Anderson Manuscript editor: Nan McNab Disclaimer While every effort has been made to ensure its accuracy, this manual should be used as a general guide only and readers are encouraged to adapt content to the circumstances within their particular workplace. No responsibility is taken by the authors or publishers for any errors or omissions. This publication is copyright. With the exception of section 4.7 'Advising and acting for Indigenous clients' for which specific permission is required from the copyright holder (see footnote 139) reproduction in part or in whole is encouraged. We ask that proper credit is given to the National Pro Bono Resource Centre and the Victoria Law Foundation within reproduced material. Material may not be reproduced for sale purposes without the written agreement of the National Pro Bono Resource Centre and Victoria Law Foundation. Australian pro bono manual 1 Introduction Contents About this manual 3 Acknowledgements 4 Introduction 6 1 Planning, developing and maintaining a program 8 1Planning pro bono for the firm 8 2 Current models of law firm pro bono 10 3Defining pro bono for the firm 17 4Promoting a pro bono culture 24 5Surveying interest 31 6Identifying needs and sources of work 32 7Setting targets and budgets
    [Show full text]
  • Reconsidering Home Rule and City-State Preemption in Abandoned Fields of Law Franklin R
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by University of Minnesota Law School University of Minnesota Law School Scholarship Repository Minnesota Law Review 2017 Reconsidering Home Rule and City-State Preemption in Abandoned Fields of Law Franklin R. Guenthner Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.umn.edu/mlr Part of the Law Commons Recommended Citation Guenthner, Franklin R., "Reconsidering Home Rule and City-State Preemption in Abandoned Fields of Law" (2017). Minnesota Law Review. 89. https://scholarship.law.umn.edu/mlr/89 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the University of Minnesota Law School. It has been accepted for inclusion in Minnesota Law Review collection by an authorized administrator of the Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Note Reconsidering Home Rule and City-State Preemption in Abandoned Fields of Law Franklin R. Guenthner∗ INTRODUCTION Phoenix, Arizona, is stuck. In 2015, the city of over one mil- lion people1 recognized the growing impact of climate change,2 and the need for sound energy policy at a municipal level.3 Local officials considered passing local energy benchmarking legisla- tion, whereby buildings above a certain size would report their energy consumption, allowing tenants to choose whether to sup- port a building’s carbon footprint.4 Before lawmakers could even propose the ordinance, however, the state legislature passed a law prohibiting any city in the state, including Phoenix, from 5 passing such laws. ∗ J.D. Candidate 2018, University of Minnesota Law School.
    [Show full text]