PRO BONO IN THE NEWS: December 2016 – February 2017

Below you can find articles of interest to the pro bono community that have been published since our last edition. Click through to read any news article in full.

You can also follow the latest news in pro bono from Australia and around the world by following the Centre on Twitter: @AusPBC

AUSTRALIA

• Australia is ill-prepared for its own version of Donald Trump
  13 February 2017 – Sydney Morning Herald
  George Williams, Dean of the UNSW Faculty of Law, examines the need for Australia to adopt a Bill of Rights by looking at the US experience.

• Queensland legal centre worried federal funding cut will hurt the disadvantaged
  29 January 2017 – ABC News
  A Queensland legal service (QPILCH) that has helped thousands of money-strapped clients take legal action or defend themselves in court is worried about its own financial future, as it waits to hear whether federal funding will be renewed.

• Justice Connect offers transgender teens free legal help to access stage two hormonal treatment
  25 January 2017 – Herald Sun
  Justice Connect announces its ‘Stage 2 Access’ service, which gives young trans and gender-diverse people free legal help to access vital treatment.

• Transgender teens needing Family Court stage two transition approval get new service
  24 January 2017 – The Age
  Justice Connect has launched a service dedicated to helping trans and gender-diverse people receive free legal help to access vital hormone therapy. The demand for hormone therapy has more than doubled in the last six months of 2016 alone.

• A Fair Go
  24 January 2017 – Lawyers Weekly
  Prominent human rights lawyers discuss the challenges in practising human rights law, particularly as Legal Aid has become less accessible and the need for pro bono assistance has increased.

• Law school to break free from ‘standard’ legal education
  20 January 2017 – Lawyers Weekly
  The new Thomas More Law School North Sydney is seeking to offer “something quite different to the standard legal education” model, including having students carry out the equivalent of four weeks pro bono work over the course of their degree.

• Budget constraints force justice systems to innovate
  17 January 2017 – Lawyers Weekly
  According to the director of the Sir Zelman Cowen Centre, Professor Kathy Laster, the impetus for innovation in the way that services are delivered by community legal centres and the courts is the need to ‘do more with less’.

• Fight for compensation over land Aboriginal war veteran Herbert Lovett was refused
  17 January 2017 – ABC Radio Australia
  An Aboriginal man whose father served in both world wars is suing the Victorian Government for millions of dollars in compensation with the help of pro bono legal support, alleging his father’s historical request for a soldier settlement block was knocked back on the grounds of race.

• New service delivers legal assistance worth $2.2m
  28 December 2016 – Lawyers Weekly
  Western Australia’s new pro bono referral service, Law Access, is being adopted by pro bono lawyers and has enabled the delivery of more than $2.2 million worth of legal assistance in just 18 months.

INTERNATIONAL

• UK: Founding Signatories of the Law Society Pro Bono Charter
  20 February 2017 – The Law Society
  The Law Society of England and Wales announces the early adopters of the Law Society’s Pro Bono Charter and says these founding signatories exemplify the legal profession’s commitment to access to justice.

• US: Trump Order Victims are Being Tracked by This Law Firm
  13 February 2017 – Bloomberg Law
  How many people were affected by President Trump’s travel ban when it was first put into place and how many more would be if it were allowed to take effect again? Orrick is setting out to answer those questions as part of the legal community’s massive pro bono response to the ban.

• UK: Interventionist Thinking
  10 February 2017 – Solicitors Journal
  Pro bono is no substitute for legal aid, but it might be time to accept it’s the only option out there, suggests editor of the Solicitors Journal, John van der Luit-Drummond.

• UK: Lawyers must promote pro bono and public legal education
  7 February 2017 – Solicitors Journal
  Facing legal aid cuts, Barrister and Conservative MP Alex Chalk suggests that lawyers should take the lead in following a US style pro bono model in order to help secure access to justice.

• US: Donald Trump’s alleged human rights abuses are being tracked by one of the world’s best legal institutions
  6 February 2017 – The Independent
  ‘His administration immediately threatened women’s rights, immigrants’ rights, and indigenous rights, and so many more’ says Julia Sherman, editor of the Human Rights Law Review, a journal produced by Columbia University.

• US: Group Turns To Big Law for Major Immigrant Rights Effort
  5 February 2017 – New York Law Journal
  A group lawyers and attorneys who have launched a nationwide project to represent immigrants at risk of deportation in the wake of Donald Trump’s policies are seeking resources and volunteers from firms.

• US: Trump’s Election Sparks New Interest in Pro Bono
  19 January 2017 – The American Lawyer
  Since Donald Trump’s election, donations have flooded into public interest groups. At many large law firms, pro bono coordinators are seeing a spike in offers to volunteer.

• US: Law Students Performed 2.2 Million Pro Bono Hours Last Year
  5 January 2017 – The National Law Journal
  According to figures compiled by the Association of American Law Schools, the law students performed more than 2.2 million hours of pro bono work while on campus, valued at more than $52 million.

• US: A Pro Bono Dream Team Takes On the N.R.A.
  17 December 2016 – The New York Times
  A coalition that includes corporate litigators from seven US leading law firms plans to devote tens of millions of dollars in free legal services to fighting for gun control.