We commit a fixed share of our capacity to cases that are not commercial, and we run them the way we run paid ones.
Every lawyer here is expected to record at least 100 hours a year on pro bono work, and those hours count toward targets and toward partnership on the same basis as fee-earning work. Last year we recorded 7,100 of them.
We take pro bono instructions where a disputes practice is actually useful: appellate work, asylum and immigration appeals, wrongful conviction claims, and defending non-governmental organisations against litigation brought to silence them. We staff these cases with partners.
We act without charge for claimants where the point of law affects a class of people who could not otherwise bring it. We have taken several of these to final appeal at our own cost.
We defend journalists, researchers, and campaigning organisations against proceedings brought to exhaust them financially. It sits naturally alongside the commercial practice, because the tactics are the ones we see deployed in commercial disputes every week.
Our partners sit on rules committees, arbitral institution panels, and advocacy training faculties, and we fund scholarships at law schools in each of the three jurisdictions where we practise.
Organisations seeking pro bono representation should write to [email protected] with a short description of the case and any deadline. We run conflicts on pro bono work exactly as we do on commercial work.
We accept a limited number of new instructions each year, and we run conflicts before any substantive discussion. Please do not send us confidential information until we have confirmed in writing that we can act.