National Pro Bono Week

The 6th National Pro Bono Week was launched at the Law Society of England and Wales on Monday 12th November. Via DVD, Prince Charles addressed the audience praising the pro bono work of thousands of lawyers both domestically and abroad. During the week, the Presidents of the Bar Council, ILEX and the Law Society each spoke of their support for the pro bono movement. The Solicitor General and the Prime Minister provided messages of thanks to lawyers who give their time and skills for free for the benefit of others.

A4ID, driving the international theme of the week, played a significant role throughout. Members were involved in events at Allen & Overy, the House of Commons, the Law Society, the Mansion House, University of Queen Mary, Simmons & Simmons and Shearman & Sterling. On Wednesday 14th November, the newly formed Young Lawyers Division presented Katie Hutt, recently appointed Executive Officer of A4ID, with an award for her extensive commitment to the development of A4ID during her time in practice. On 14th November, Joss Saunders, Legal Counsel for Oxfam, called on the Mansion House delegates to engage in international pro bono through A4ID.

The week culminated in the first Joint National Pro Bono Conference, which took place on Saturday 17th November. Lawyers attended from as far away as Australia, Canada, India and the United States as well as from throughout Europe and across England and Wales. The Attorney General, Baroness Scotland opened the day, praising the work of the profession and the coordinating bodies for continuing to promote pro bono work. Lord Philips followed, calling on more lawyers to get involved and address the massive unmet legal need both domestically and abroad.

Kara Irwin, Nick Flynn and Chris Marshall represented A4ID in a variety of panel discussions during the conference. Chris was also invited to join the final plenary session chaired by Joshua Rozenburg, Legal Editor of the Telegraph. This session drew together leaders from the core pro bono providers of the profession: Bar Pro Bono Unit (Bar Council), ILEX Pro Bono Forum (Institute of Legal Executives) and LawWorks (Law Society) to address challenges for the future.

A4ID would like to take this opportunity to thank all of those involved who supported A4ID throughout the week.

Know Your Rights: How to lobby without being sued

On Friday 26th October, A4ID and Doughty Street Chambers held a seminar for NGOs on defamation issues and the Freedom of Information Act.

The seminar was kindly hosted by Lovells LLP and was delivered by leading barristers Gavin Millar QC, Andrew Nicoll QC and Guy Vassall-Adams.

During the afternoon participants learnt more about current and proposed legislation and took part in a variety of case studies. They also discussed how to access information from official sources and how to campaign without the risk of impending legal proceedings.

The seminar was a great success. A4ID would like to take this opportunity to thank Doughty Street, Lovells LLP and the participants for a very interesting and informative afternoon.

“Brilliant, really helpful and lots of other positive judgments on the day”
- Ian Leggett, People and Planet

"Thank you very much to A4ID and the barristers from Doughty Street Chambers for the excellent seminar on Friday. The information was packaged together in such a useful way with the needs of NGOs in mind, the presentations were interesting and engaging and I felt so much better informed on these two important areas of law at the end of the afternoon."
- Ruth Goldsmith


  
 

Why I got involved in A4ID

I inherit my thirst for justice from my mother. I qualified in 1969. I became an early admirer of Thomas Paine’s ideas.

My practice area is claimant catastrophic clinical negligence; I was an active member of Amnesty from the early 70s and became increasingly concerned with neoliberalism and its effects. As retirement beckoned I decided I should try and give something back and retire early, to have time to achieve anything.

As I searched for an outlet it became apparent that too many NGOs were inevitably treating the symptoms whilst injustice - the root cause of global poverty, grew unabated and its sufferers remained unrepresented, either locally or at the core of globalization.

In this vacuum I was on the cusp of founding an organization of lawyers to address these issues when a pre-nascent A4id came into view.

I am currently on the A4id Training Programme, doing some background reading and attending conferences many of which I would not have heard of but for A4id. I am involved with the Debt and Governance working groups, scoping a potential project in Sierra Leone and helping a small group designing a project managers course.

It is inspirational to see so many motivated young people whose firms are prepared to give their time for perhaps the greatest problem the world faces. Rolled out across the world’s legal profession we surely have the ability to bring about justice for the poor.

I don’t want to be part of the generation that held in their hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty but blew it all on a ringtone.

- Simon John, Consultant, Kester Cunningham John

  


100 words on …Transparency International’s annual Corruption Perceptions Index

100 words on…Transparency International’s annual Corruption Perceptions Index
Transparency International’s annual Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), first released in 1995, has been widely credited with putting the theme of corruption on the international policy agenda. It is a composite index, drawing on multiple expert opinion surveys that ranks 180 countries (in 2007) by their perceived levels of corruption among public officials and politicians. Corruption is defined as the abuse of public office for private gain. The scores range from ten (clean) to zero (highly corrupt).

The 2007 CPI highlights an ongoing, strong correlation between corruption and poverty, with the most impoverished and troubled states such as Iraq, Somalia and Sudan at the bottom of the ranking. Transparency International notes that 40% of those scoring below three, indicating that corruption is perceived as rampant, are classified by the World Bank as low income countries.

Some of the countries with a significant worsening of perceived corruption include Austria, Bahrain, Mauritius and Thailand. Countries with a significant improvement include Czech Republic, Croatia, Romania, Italy and Cuba. The improvements in certain South East and Eastern European countries points to the productive effects of the European Union accession process.

Finland, Iceland, Sweden, Denmark, New Zealand, Singapore, and Canada, all affluent countries and most with low population for their surface area, have been in the top ten since the beginning of the CPI.

- Farah Gulmohamed, Reed Smith Richards Butler LLP
 

• Visit our website at www.a4id.org • contact Alex Marseglia at info@a4id.org or 020 7772 5988
Many thanks to Graeme Howlett and Priya Rathor for their help with the A4ID newsletters