Allens Arthur Robinson provides free legal assistance to individuals in need and to not-for-profit and charitable clients in many areas of the law.
Our pro bono practice has two goals: to contribute to the community by helping individuals and groups that need, but cannot readily access, legal assistance and to provide opportunities for our staff to be involved in pro bono work.
As a firm, we strive to ensure that all of our lawyers have an opportunity to contribute to the growth and development of the pro bono practice. To encourage this, we have established a pro bono practice group to give staff the opportunity to work together on pro bono projects and to share and develop their expertise.
The firm gives pro bono assistance to organisations whose objective is to improve or protect the natural world, and organisations that promote the protection of human rights, including the rights of indigenous people, refugees, the homeless and those with disabilities such as mental illness.
As a foundation signatory to the National Pro Bono Resource Centre Target for pro bono work, we are committed to using our best efforts to ensure that our lawyers undertake, on average, at least 35 hours of pro bono legal work per year. We want to build and sustain a vibrant, focused and meaningful pro bono practice.
Through our work with community legal centres, homeless welfare agencies, the Public Interest Law Clearing Houses in NSW, Victoria and Queensland and the Public Interest Advocacy Centre in NSW, as well as through our human rights work, we advise more than 300 individuals a year. The total number of not-for-profit clients we work with at any time is around 150-200.
Our lawyers can become more involved in our pro bono practice by undertaking secondments at community legal centres. We also extend our pro bono opportunities to our vacation clerks. Each year, four of our vacation clerks complete a six-week internship at a Native Title Representative Body or Land Council around Australia.
View examples of pro bono work the firm has completed in the past year in our Australian and international offices.
For more information about the pro bono practice, please contact probono@aar.com.au.
You can download the pdf version of our Community Commitment brochure (1.8MB).
