Law Society lauds DLA Phillips Fox for pro bono approach
By Craig Sisterson

WHEN SPEAKING at the first sitting of the Supreme Court in its new building on 19 February, New Zealand Law Society President John Marshall QC made a point of addressing the key importance of pro bono work to the profession’s ongoing commitment to provide access to justice. Marshall noted that although the profession has “a fine tradition” of carrying out pro bono work, in other countries, such work is more structured, and can even be a requirement for firms wanting Government contract work.

Marshall singled out DLA Phillips Fox, which has a pro bono target of three per cent of its work, and added that he was delighted that some other large New Zealand firms are “following this lead”. In Australia, almost all large firms have pro bono policies and budgets, said Marshall. “I have focused on the large firms because I want to encourage them to take more leadership in this area, but of course our smaller firms and sole practitioners continue to do more than their fair share of pro bono work.”

DLA Phillips Fox’s Auckland office leader, partner John Hannan, said the firm established a formal pro bono programme in New Zealand in 2004. Shortly afterwards, the firm introduced a full fee credit for its lawyers, meaning partners and staff could do pro bono work and count it towards their budgets. The firm’s full-time pro bono partner, Sydney-based Nicolas Patrick, said the full fee credit was a key step in driving up pro bono initiatives. DLA Phillips Fox also has a part-time pro bono partner in New Zealand, and overall the firm is targeting around A$8.5 million of pro bono work this year.

Hannan noted that although there are plenty of lawyers doing great pro bono work in firms with no formal pro bono programmes, the problem for such firms (particularly large firms) is that commitment to such work can depend on the enthusiasm of individuals. “If there’s no specific recognition of [pro bono] work in terms of fee budgets, then it can get lost sight of by a larger group within the firm… [I]f you formalise it, and you specifically provide for a fee budget credit, then you create conditions in which people are more likely to take up issues, and seek out opportunities, to do this sort of work.”

DLA Phillips Fox staff are able to come into the office, and during normal work hours, work on a pro bono file without having to look over their shoulders in terms of achieving their fee budgets, said Hannan. This can allow pro bono matters to be progressed more quickly, and be dealt with in exactly the same way as a paying client would be.

In New Zealand, the firm’s pro bono clients include charities such as the Fred Hollows Foundation, Oxfam, Habitat for Humanity, and the Starship Foundation, as well as individuals in need. For the past three years, DLA Phillips Fox has also operated a weekly outreach clinic in South Auckland, in partnership with the Otara Law Centre. “In a sense that we’re a large law firm, we [feel we] should be giving something back to the community,” said Hannan. “We find that both partners and staff that engage in this type of work get a considerable amount of professional and personal satisfaction.”