The Power of Pro Bono: UK Pro Bono Week reveals 2024 themes

Pro Bono Week 2024 to focus on the Power of Pro Bono, highlighting the stories of how pro bono has helped those who are barred from justice.

London, May 2024: Organisers of the 23rd annual Pro Bono Week, taking place from 4-8 November 2024, will this year focus on the Power of Pro Bono as its guiding theme. Pro Bono Week will bring together the UK legal community to promote collaboration and encourage more legal professionals to provide free of charge qualified legal assistance to those most in need. This year, to showcase the real-world impact of pro bono, events during the week will focus on the following three topics:

• Barred from justice: the powerful, everyday stories of the impact of lawyers and law students who give their time to protect the rights of those most disadvantaged in society.
• Embedding pro bono in your organisation and career: placing pro bono at the heart of everyone’s practice and hearing from those at the forefront of establishing business structures for pro bono within law firms, chambers, in house, universities and charities,
• How technology can enhance access to justice: existing and new tools to ensure pro bono is innovative and effective.

By focusing on the Power of Pro Bono as the central theme for Pro Bono Week 2024, events will highlight the important and impactful pro bono work already taking place in the UK, and create new opportunities to increase participation across the country. Across the UK, demand for legal advice has never been greater, with the cost-of-living crisis biting and creating serious financial hardship for many.

Pro Bono Week 2023 saw over 60 events take place across the UK, involving an estimated 3,000 people participating to shine a spotlight on the UK legal sector’s rich history of – and modern commitment to – pro bono initiatives.

Pro bono work is legal advice or representation provided free of charge by volunteer lawyers to those who cannot pay for legal services but are not eligible for legal aid. Pro Bono Week seeks to recognise, showcase and raise awareness of the voluntary commitment of solicitors, barristers, advocates and chartered legal executives across the UK to help those in need. It also aims to encourage more legal professionals to undertake pro bono work.

Commenting on the themes of Pro Bono Week 2024, Toby Brown, chair of UK Pro Bono Week said:
“Across the country there’s a wealth of valuable pro bono work being done every day by the UK’s legal professionals. This year’s events will focus on recognising and celebrating the difference pro bono makes to the lives of those who otherwise would be barred from accessing justice. With just six months to go until Pro Bono Week 2024, we look forward to supporting our colleagues across the sector to finalise their plans and events in the coming months.”

Notes to editors
Pro Bono Week is organised by a committee that includes representatives from pro bono charities, law schools, law firms, law schools, the UK Collaborative Plan for Pro Bono and the In House Pro Bono Group, with contributions from across the sector including the Bar Council of England & Wales, CILEX, the Law Society of England & Wales, the Law Society of Northern Ireland, the Bar Council of Northern Ireland, the Law Society of Scotland and the Faculty of Advocates.

A full report on last year’s Pro Bono Week can be found at probonoweek.org.uk/2023report. The report emphasises the importance of pro bono, as well as practical steps to further promote the growth of this work, including through technology. It also highlights the experience in particular of young lawyers, the value they place on it and the structures with which their firms and chambers
support pro bono.