Has your firm or legal team recently signed up to the National Pro Bono Target but isn’t sure how to go about building its pro bono practice? Are you a Target signatory looking to share your knowledge and experience with other pro bono providers?
The Buddy Program is a recent initiative by the Centre that aims to support Target signatories and law firms/legal teams with emerging and developing pro bono practices to grow their practices and improve their delivery of pro bono services. The Program builds on the collaborative nature of the Australian pro bono sector and enables all participants to informally share experiences and strengthen the pro bono community as a whole.
This Program aims to assist signatories with emerging and developing pro bono practices to grow their participation in pro bono legal assistance by partnering them with experienced pro bono co-ordinators from law firms and organisations with more mature pro bono practices.
Learning directly from a more experienced pro bono practitioner can be extremely helpful in the initial stages of setting up or growing a pro bono practice. By connecting members of the pro bono community, the Program hopes to ensure the delivery of best practice pro bono work and support signatories to the National Pro Bono Target.
To learn more about the objectives and program structure of the Buddy Program, see here.
To read the Centre’s recent Pro Bono Voco article on the Buddy Program, see here.
“Discussions with mentors (with significant experience) have provided very useful ideas and strategies on how to develop and expand my personal and BP’s pro bono practice.”
“We enjoyed the informal approach to the buddy program. It was conversation between peers, learning from each other’s practices and sharing success and failures to hopefully strengthen our pro bono community overall.”
“It’s a great opportunity to share the collaborative nature of the Australian pro bono sector with new signatories to the Target.”
We are looking for mentees who are either:
And mentors who are:
To apply to be a mentor or mentee, or to find out more about the Buddy Program, please contact the Centre at: info@probonocentre.org.au.
If you are interested in participating, we ask that you provide us with the contact details of at least one lawyer at your firm/organisation who would be willing to be the contact for the firm. To make the most out of the Program, the Centre also suggests that participants meet at least 4 times a year.
