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CSR in practice

We’ve outlined in a bit more detail just some of the areas you might get involved in.

Non-legal projects

The Citizenship Foundation

Through this scheme, volunteers visit schools in deprived areas and engage 14-16-year-olds in workshops on various legal and citizen-based issues. Our volunteers draw on their expertise in order to raise students’ knowledge of legal issues, introducing young people to the concept of the law and encouraging enquiry and debate. The issues covered range from consumer law to the youth justice system and police rights.

Mentoring programmes

Many of our volunteers meet regularly with 14-15-year-old students from Hackney to act as their ‘mentors’. In fact, both sides benefit: the children can get advice on anything from their studies to how to complete an application form, from an interested adult who is neither a parent nor a teacher; and the volunteers themselves develop valuable people skills and gain much from the relationships formed.

Employability skills

Our new 'Linking work with learning' programme is the first community investment programme designed to develop employability skills in all schools in one London borough: a unique partnership between Linklaters and Hackney. You can get involved in career days, 'Dragons’ Den' style enterprise challenges, reading, writing and debating challenges, or become a governor of a Hackney school. 

Legal (pro bono) projects

The Independent Panel for Special Education Advice (IPSEA)

IPSEA provides free advice and support to parents and carers of those with special educational needs, including support and representation at Special Educational Needs and Disability Tribunals. Many of our legal staff run the cases from our offices, drafting appeals and statements, gathering evidence, arranging expert reports or interviewing witnesses. Besides everything else, it also offers fantastic advocacy experience.

Free Representation Unit

This is a registered charity, which provides free legal advice on employment or social security issues to people who can’t afford legal advice or access legal aid. Our volunteers prepare cases for tribunals - drafting statements, researching areas of law and representing clients in court.

Secondments

We provide trainee secondments to the Mary Ward Legal Centre, the Prince’s Trust and the Free Representation Unit, so there are opportunities to develop your legal skills 'in-house' at these charities.

Microfinance and Social Enterprise

There are plenty of opportunities to get involved in groundbreaking, cutting-edge transactional pro bono work. For instance, a team of trainees and associates in our capital markets department recently advised Charity Bank on a capital-raising issue to finance its social enterprise work - the first finance deal of its kind in the charitable sector. Teams of lawyers have also assisted a local microfinance organisation with advice on the setting up of a wholesale business lending company to provide loans to new and growing enterprises among disadvantaged groups that are unable to access finance from traditional commercial channels.

This isn’t the extent of how you can get involved by any means: we have many projects on the go at any one time, so there are plenty of opportunities waiting. And if you have your own idea of how you can help a cause in an area local to our offices, the community investment team are always keen to hear about it. To find out more about the innovative pro bono and community investment work of the firm, please click here

We also undertake a variety of global projects on a heavily discounted fee basis that don’t strictly qualify as ‘pro bono’. The projects we have acted on at discounted rates amount to a significant and valuable contribution in addressing intractable global issues. For instance, a cross-practice and multi-jurisdictional team of Linklaters’ lawyers (including a London-based team) advised the GAVI fund in relation to the International Finance Facility for Immunisation (IFFI). This is a groundbreaking scheme designed to provide life-saving vaccines in up to 70 of the world’s poorest countries.

Our work for the GAVI fund is just one example of how we equate our approach to community investment work with our approach to business. We make our clients’ goals possible by providing them with solutions and finding ways to help them succeed; our pro bono work aims to provide the same service to the charitable and community partners that we work with.