Around half of all solicitors occasionally do legal work for free. There is no reason to think the numbers for barristers and legal executives are any different. “Pro bono” advice – as it is known – occurs in many different contexts from phone advice in the office to evening law clinics in community centres to prisoner outreach, here and abroad. One common characteristic is that lawyers offer free legal advice to those who need it and cannot afford it or get legal aid. Another is that it can be quite inefficient. It may seem churlish to criticise such a noble endeavour but the fact is that demand far outstrips supply and so efficiency matters.

In Summer 2009, I undertook a 3-month placement with LawWorks to investigate the use and potential of IT in pro bono law. LawWorks, the Solicitors Pro Bono Group, is a national charity that, amongst other things, brings together pro bono lawyers and individual or community group clients who need legal help but cannot afford it. For this project, I surveyed just under 300 lawyers who do pro bono work. We wanted to know who was doing the work, where and with what support (especially IT). Our intention was to find ways of helping to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of pro bono legal advice, and make it more satisfying and attractive for those who give it. Around 70 per cent of respondents had less than three years’ PQE. A similar percentage said that they did their pro bono work in evening law clinics.

We were encouraged to find that over 90 per cent of respondents use IT to undertake research and to produce client letters. However, two findings were quite surprising. Firstly, barely a quarter of respondents make use of software to capture a record of their cases. This suggests that much pro bono work is done on an episodic basis with few client records being held in a readily accessible form. Given that in many areas of social welfare work 20 per cent of clients generate 80 per cent of the work, this is concerning.

Secondly, almost 60 per cent of respondents indicated that better use of IT in their work was being hampered by lack of access to subscription-only services (LexisNexis, Westlaw, Lawtel etc). It is a principle of pro bono work that it receives the same priority and attention as paid work. Clearly, this includes the ability to access high quality legal resources. For this reason, LawWorks has traditionally teamed up with LexisNexis, who have most recently provided Lexis PSL free of charge to pro bono services that are members of the LawWorks Clinics Network.

In addition to looking at problems faced by pro bono lawyers, we were also keen to hear about the kinds of developments they would like to see. In addition to more legal database access, three potential initiatives gained significant support. Firstly, pro bono lawyers want access to high quality checklists and templates for specific areas of law. Many of them are operating outside their day-to-day area of legal expertise and it is helpful to have appropriate algorithms to hand for particular client situations. This approach is increasingly common in medical settings, where professionals also face a very wide range of client problems. Secondly, they would like greater access to advice systems such as the Citizens Advice product, Advisernet©. As a result, LawWorks has subsequently negotiated a deal for its members to access this service at reduced cost. Thirdly, they would like to be able to access experts – or even just peers – online to discuss particularly thorny cases. There is often very little time in a busy clinic to chat to colleagues and so a chance to reflect afterwards is extremely valuable.

The overall picture from the survey is of many individuals doing fantastic work for clients under sometimes trying circumstances. The support available to many of them is contingent upon the resources that their daytime firm has available and the sympathy with which their pro bono work is viewed by their employer. For some that means a rewarding experience where even senior partners take a keen interest in their pro bono cases. For others it can be quite a lonely feeling of doing good but not really feeling appreciated or supported in doing so.

In response to the needs expressed and to the sense of fragmentation within the pro bono world, LawWorks is planning to develop an online home for pro bono lawyers. To do this, we required an online facility that could support an invitation-based community, provide a range of sophisticated collaborative tools and be cheap enough to offer as a “free” service to pro bono lawyers. Having ruled out an in-house solution as too resource-intensive and other UK-based facilities as too costly, we settled upon an existing US online legal community, LegalOnRamp.com. Its founder, Paul Lippe, has offered all the facilities we need at no cost, provided that LawWorks ensures that only bona fide pro bono lawyers sign up.

In conjunction with LegalOnRamp.com, LawWorks is aiming to set up a series of online groups dedicated to particular areas of social welfare law, starting with housing and employment. The idea is to have one place online where pro bono lawyers can go to find and download precedents, templates and checklists; to chat with peers about particular concerns and to seek expert advice when needed either from online materials or from chatting with acknowledged experts in the field. Once it is established, and work to get it off the ground will begin in the New Year, it is hoped that the service will grow and that new applications will be developed. These might range from opportunities for social-cum-training events through to web-based conferencing.

It is in the nature of pro bono law that everything is done on a voluntary basis. The successful establishment of Pro Bono Online will require lots of pairs of hands to contribute. If anyone is interested in taking part by offering their legal or IT expertise or just their infectious enthusiasm then please get in touch either with Bob Grindrod at or Martin Curtis at .