Former Attorney General speaks out on need for additional funds for pro bono legal help

10 November 2009

In a speech yesterday at the National Pro Bono Conference, Lord Goldsmith QC expressed serious concern that the pro bono and voluntary advice sectors were being overwhelmed with an increasing demand for legal help during the recession, when their budgets were decreasing.

Announcing the first funding grants made by the Access to Justice Foundation, he called for ambitious and creative solutions to generate additional funds to support such pro bono work, which the Foundation could distribute strategically across England & Wales in conjunction with Regional Legal Support Trusts and national pro bono organisations.

Lord Goldsmith QC, Chair of the Access to Justice Foundation and former Attorney General, gave a keynote address to the second National Pro Bono Conference, held at Friend's House in London.

His speech reported on the first year of the Foundation's activities, during which it had received several pro bono costs orders, and distributed these funds together with donations to 14 pro bono organisations around the country.

He emphasised the need for lawyers to seek pro bono costs orders, pointing out that they produced a "double win" for pro bono clients by generating new funds to support other pro bono work in the future.

He suggested there was a need to identify other sources of new, additional funding that can be pulled into the pro bono sector, such as unclaimed client account balances. Lord Goldsmith said it was "surely my duty as Chairman and a charity trustee to speak out about this and ask why such funds aren't being made available to be shared with the pro bono and voluntary legal sector."

Lord Goldsmith concluded by calling on everybody involved in pro bono to come together and work for the common good of getting additional money to the organisations in need, saying "The time for action is now, not when the recession is a distant memory".

His address came as the Foundation announced the successful recipients of this first round of small grant funding.

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