PILA talks to Nicolas Patrick, International Head of Pro Bono at DLA Piper

PILA recently spoke with Nicolas Patrick, who is a full-time pro bono partner at DLA Piper's Sydney office, and Head of Pro Bono for the firm in the UK, Europe, Middle East and Asia Pacific. Nicolas sets the strategic direction of the firm's pro bono program and leads the firm's thinking on community investment through pro bono in these regions.

Nicolas is keen to emphasise that commitment to pro bono is part of the very culture of DLA Piper, both philosophically and practically. Identifying law firms in domestic markets with a similar culture to the parent is a key component of the firm's continued expansion. DLA Piper's commitment in all its offices worldwide to pro bono is impressive when you consider the scale of the firm's operations - 4,200 lawyers in 76 offices, across 30 countries. In 2009, the firm invested more than 164,000 hours of corporate responsibility and pro bono work.

Nicolas is very clear about what law firms need to do to "unlock the capacity" of their fee-earners to do pro bono work - firms need to integrate pro bono into their working procedures and systems. Some examples of the ways this is done at DLA Piper include:

  • the firm's client management systems allow pro bono matters and clients to be entered and managed in the same way as billable clients;
  • pro bono work is given equal status to paid work, and this is practically implemented by way of fee credits. This means that for an individual lawyer's budget, there is no distinction between pro bono and other types of work;
  • in each DLA Piper office, a senior partner -who has a real personal interest in pro bono - is designated as the corporate responsibility/pro bono partner; and
  • the firm's financial systems enable disbursements to be paid for pro bono matters.

The firm is always looking for ways to improve the way their internal systems deal with pro bono work. On the day PILA speaks with Nicolas, he's been visiting the risk team in their Sheffield office, who are creating and implementing pro bono client retainer letters for all 30 jurisdictions the firm operates in.

When asked why lawyers should do pro bono, Nicolas stressed that lawyers have special skills and a privileged position in society. "As lawyers we have a monopoly on the provision of legal assistance," he says, "and access to the law should not be reserved for those who can pay."

Nicolas also spoke of the ever-increasing client demands for law firms to seriously commit to pro bono and corporate social responsibility. Whereas ten years ago, the question posed to law firms in a tender was, "what pro bono work does your firm do?" he said the question now is, "what specific pro bono work has each of the named partners in this bid undertaken in the past twelve months?" The firm actively welcomes that kind of interrogation, and even encourages it at the other end of the spectrum - recruitment. Nicolas is a regular speaker at university career fairs in Australia, where he gives law students examples of questions to ask at job interviews about a firm's pro bono commitment - and how to determine marketing hype from reality. He tells law students that if a law firm is not giving specific details about its pro bono programme, "that's a warning sign that there may not be a serious commitment to pro bono in that firm."

We also asked Nicolas why pro bono should happen in a structured way, rather than on an informal or ad hoc basis. He said that a structured approach to pro bono is necessary to identify unmet legal need, and understand where lawyers can have the most impact. Nicolas says that without structure, "you're dependent on what comes through the door!" In his view, such cases can involve individuals "who can already advocate very well for themselves".

Click here to find out more about DLA Piper's pro bono work globally.

Click here to contact PILA and find out more about our thriving pro bono register - including our pro bono protocol that we use to help firms adapt their internal systems and procedures for pro bono work.

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