 Pro bono legal services and Citizens Advice Bureaux ( 58kb)
Foreword
There is a long history of lawyers taking part in pro bono work. This work can take many forms and includes advice and representation for individuals but may also include membership of Trustee Boards of local charities, including advice centres. Pro bono work may be done independently by an individual lawyer or law firm or may be organised through co-ordinating bodies such as Law Works or the Bar Pro Bono Unit. The donation of free time to bureaux and clients in this way is a valuable contribution to the legal advice needs of lower income groups, without removing the continuing growing need for publicity funded legal services.
For many years lawyers have worked with individual Citizens Advice Bureaux in some pro bono capacity. Most common was the Honorary Legal Adviser (HLA) - a volunteer lawyer appointed to the bureau. Acting as a resource for advisers and clients they undertake various functions, ranging from secondary support services, such as consultancy and training, to the provision of direct advice to clients through a volunteer rota or otherwise. HLAs are distinguished by having an ongoing and direct relationship with the bureau.
Over the last few years this way of working has declined and that bureaux are working with pro bono lawyers in different ways. To explore this further and Citizens Advice commissioned a short piece of research looking at the levels and types of pro bono work on offer in bureaux.
It is clear from our findings that pro bono work does happen in some bureaux on a large scale, often in the form of advice clinics that are staffed by a rota of local lawyers. The demands of Legal Services Commission (LSC) contracting mean that solicitors often specialise in certain areas of law and so the advice clinics are more often run in specific subjects (family law in particular) rather than being seen as just general 'legal' session. It is also clear that there are bureaux that would like to offer pro bono services but are unable to do so for wide ranging reasons. Citizens Advice will continue to work with organisations and engage in events such as Pro Bono Week to ensure that more bureaux can choose to engage with pro bono services.
Introduction
1. There are a number of issues that have led to the need to take forward some research into the use of pro bono legal services by Citizens Advice Bureaux.
- The Bureaux Information Survey (BIS) records the number of bureaux that have used legal pro bono services in the previous year. There were indications that there had been a fall in the numbers of bureaux using pro bono lawyers, but the reasons for this were unclear. In 2002/03, BIS shows that bureaux used 195 solicitors and 35 barristers, however by 2003/04 the BIS shows a claimed fall in the number of solicitors to nine and the number of pro bono barristers to 63.
- It is not clear why some bureaux engage with pro bono work and others do not.
- The Solicitors Pro Bono Group (SPBG) is keen to work with Citizens Advice to promote and fundraise for advice clinics. There are of course many different ways that pro bono work can assist bureaux and it is therefore necessary to estabish the range of models that would be most suitable for bureaux.
2. This project was undertaken in order to:
- establish the validity of the BIS data concerning pro bono legal work in bureaux
- establish a clearer picture of the types of pro bono legal services that bureaux are currently engaged in
- identify the barriers that prevent bureaux from becoming involved in pro bono services
- in the case of individual casework, to identify models that have been used to successfully overcome the challenges of running a pro bono legal advice service
- establish which other types of pro bono services bureaux would find most valuable.
3. This report sets out the findings of the survey.
Pro bono legal services and Citizens Advice Bureaux ( 58kb)
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