TrustLaw's Volunteering Opportunities
In House Pro Bono Stories
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We sat down with Kathryn Beck , Head of Legal at TrustLaw, and Bruno Min, Senior Legal Programme Manager at TrustLaw, to talk about the range of volunteering opportunities offered by TrustLaw.
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Tell us about your opportunities
TrustLaw is the world's largest pro bono network connecting thousands of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and social enterprises with hundreds of lawyers and law firms all across the world, based across over 190 jurisdictions.
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​We facilitate two different types of projects – advisory projects and research projects. All projects are generated by NGOs and social enterprises, who use our platform to submit requests for legal advice and assistance.
Advisory projects make up most of the work and they aim to provide legal advice and support to address and respond to the operational and business needs of non-profits and social enterprises, for example, data protection, employment and commercial contracts, intellectual property and structuring. These projects play a crucial role in supporting the resilience and sustainability of NGOs and social enterprises.
Legal research projects provide support to substantive aspects of a non-profit's work. Lawyers provide conduct legal research in one or more jurisdictions to provide answers to specific questions about the law. These projects can help NGOs make strategic decisions about their activities, for example by helping them understand their options for campaigning, advocacy, or strategic litigation, or they can result in reports that provide much needed visibility on the challenges they are seeking to address. Within that there are themes with a specific focus including human rights, inclusive economies and media freedoms.
How can lawyers get involved in what you do?
If someone is interested in providing legal services, the process is simple. You sign up, which allows access to our platforms and systems, which gives you access to all the opportunities we have available. We also provide weekly updates highlighting new and interesting projects. All of our organisations have been pre-approved and vetted by TrustLaw.
The majority of legal advice and assistance is provided through law firms, but we also have sole practitioners and in-house legal teams. There can be regulatory issues around professional indemnity insurance, but these can be worked around by partnering with law firms or if they work from jurisdictions where insurance is not needed.
Is there a fee involved?
It is a totally free service and there is no charge to use it either for lawyers, or for the organisations that the lawyers help.
Is there a contact email people can reach out to for more information?
Information on global corporate pro bono can be seen here. The best email address to use is guillermo.torrejon@thomsonreuters.com