The winners of the LawWorks Pro Bono Awards 2021 were announced last night at a ceremony at The Law Society, in Chancery Lane. Welsh Pro Bono initiative Cardiff Lawyers Care were included in the list of winners for its work with the local community.
Cardiff Lawyers Care is a collaboration between Cardiff & District Law Society (CDLS), the University of South Wales Law Clinic, LawWorks and The Wallich to provide pro bono initial legal help and support to people experiencing homelessness in Cardiff.
The initiative was spearheaded by past president of CDLS, Clive Thomas (Watkins & Gunn) and launched in his presidential year. The initiative won the LawWorks Cymru Award category at last night’s event.
The LawWorks Pro Bono Awards celebrate outstanding achievement in legal pro bono across the UK. Four initiatives from Wales were shortlisted in 2021.
The Awards recognise and celebrate the pro bono commitment of LawWorks members, their charity and corporate partners, and the work of independent clinics in the LawWorks clinics network.
Winners were chosen in nine categories, each representing the breadth and range of pro bono across England and Wales and internationally – by individuals, firms, in-house teams, law schools and law students, supported by charities, advice agencies, law centres and many non-legal volunteers.
LawWorks Chair of Trustees, Alasdair Douglas, said:
“Congratulations to the winners and finalists – all deserve recognition and celebration of their work and the difference they make in enabling access to justice, especially over what was another challenging year.
“We again received many truly inspiring nominations, all worthy of recognition and demonstrating how pro bono makes a difference to individuals, local communities, charities and not for profit organisations.”
We won! What a wonderful recognition of the fantastic partnership between @CardiffLawSoc @USW_LegalClinic @Law_Works & @TheWallich to provide essential legal advice to those experiencing homelessness. Thank you so much to all of of our volunteer lawyers #wedoprobono pic.twitter.com/MYPNaTX0jB
— Cardiff Lawyers Care (@CareCardiff) December 7, 2021
The winners of the 2021 LawWorks Pro Bono Awards are:
- Best contribution by a Small or Medium Firm: Nottingham Law School Legal Advice Centre.
- Best Contribution by a Large Firm: Bates Wells.
- Junior Lawyers Division Pro Bono Award: Lucy Clifford, Travers Smith.
- Best Contribution by an individual: Louise McCarthy, Sidley Austin.
- The LawWorks Cymru Award: Cardiff Lawyers Care Advice Clinic.
- Best Contribution by a Pro Bono Clinic: Whitechapel Legal Advice Clinic.
- Best International Pro Bono Award (in partnership with A4ID): Clifford Chance.
- Best New Pro Bono Activity: Maternity Action Pro Bono Partnership.
- Most Effective Pro Bono Partnership: Pre-action Protocol Project Partnership with DLA Piper, Deighton Pierce Glynn, Care4Calais and Human for Rights Network.
You can find out more about all those shortlisted and the winners in the 2021 LawWorks Pro Bono Awards programme.
The judges of the 2021 awards were:
- Manda Banerji, until recently Chair of the Law Society’s Junior Lawyers Division;
- Yasmin Batliwala, Chief Executive of Advocates for International Development (A4ID);
- Clare Carter, Joint Chief Executive of the Access to Justice Foundation;
- Chris Minnoch, Director of the Legal Aid Practitioners Group; and
- Paul Rogerson, Editor of the Law Society Gazette.
