Pro Bono | EMEA

Celebrating European Pro Bono Week 2023

As we are celebrating European Pro Bono Week 2023 from 20-24 November, we are showcasing pro bono highlights across the region and recognizing our lawyers who have been involved in the incredible work.

This year, four of the firm’s outstanding pro bono projects were shortlisted at the PILNet Pro Bono Awards 2023 – being the most recognized law firm at this year’s awards.

The Domestic Abuse Response Alliance (DARA) has won the Local Impact Award at PILNet, a global pro bono brokerage. This award recognizes the best, innovative pro bono legal project with an impact felt at a local or national level.

Here is an overview of the four projects that were nominated for the PILNet Pro Bono Awards – each video will only take three minutes to watch and is a great example how pro bono can help drive positive change, be it individually or collectively:

Ali’s story: Reuniting a 14-year-old boy with his family

Shortly after the Taliban took power in Afghanistan, 250+ students from the Afghanistan National Institute of Music were evacuated to Portugal in Dec 2021. Among them was 14-year-old Ali. He was accommodated in a centre for young people and was separated from his family for more than a year, before being reunited in Germany.

Rewilding Initiative

Our firm has built partnerships to tackle the rapidly advancing climate and ecological crisis. We are working with leading organizations in the field of nature restoration, creating healthy ecosystem and fostering wildlife comeback: The Wildlife Trusts, Rewilding Europe, Snowchange Cooperative, and The Great Green Wall. Only in the past 12 months, we have collectively spent over 1,000 pro bono hours on Rewilding projects.

The Domestic Abuse Response Alliance

In England and Wales, a woman is assaulted in her home every 6 seconds. DARA's goal is to build the largest alliance of pro bono lawyers to provide advocacy for domestic abuse survivors; and to extract real-time learning around the challenges faced in the Family Courts to inform policy.

Click here to watch the video.

Ukraine Pro Bono Collaborative

As part of the Ukraine Pro Bono Collaborative (UPBC), Polish and Ukrainian pro bono lawyers from six law firms provide free legal assistance to refugees from Ukraine. The project is based in Warsaw and works in six locations across the city. The lawyers assist on a wide-range of legal issues on a drop-in basis, including access to housing, employment, financial support and education, as well as more complex legal matters.

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