At the end of the day, young lawyers want to make a difference
Young lawyers love the cross-disciplinary nature of pro bono, according to Caroline Snow. The Dentons partner has observed how this type of legal work allows lawyers from different areas of expertise to work with others outside of their usual circles.
“A corporate associate in Brisbane might be working with an employment associate in Adelaide for the first time. So they’re making a meaningful connection with a pro bono client and also getting to know their colleagues at a different level working on matters that aren't necessarily always within their skill sets”, Snow told Australasian Lawyer.
Fellow Dentons partner Campbell Hudson, who alongside Snow champions the firm’s alliance with the Australian Sporting Alliance for People with Disability, highlighted how the range of legal issues present in pro bono work gives the firm a chance to highlight its depth of expertise, from corporate governance compliance and structuring issues to taxation.
“Caroline leads our corporate practice in Australia, and my practice is around insolvency and restructuring. There's often a really nice overlap between our skill sets”, he told Australasian Lawyer.
Snow added that the varied nature of the work means everyone at the firm gets involved – from the employment team handling employment law and workplace safety matters to the banking team tackling issues related to grant funding.
“I think that our young lawyers learn more from working with grassroots organisations than we could ever teach them on big deals”, she told Australasian Lawyer.
Dentons bolsters the value of pro bono work further for young lawyers by taking it into account as part of its promotions process. The firm encourages lawyers to do 60 hours of pro bono work each year, with national pro bono head Tamara Sims keeping everyone on track to meet their minimum commitment of 35 hours per lawyer.
Nonetheless, Snow believes that Dentons doesn’t have to work to convince young lawyers that pro bono work is important. It has become part of the profession as evidenced by a speech she heard at the Queensland Supreme Court a few months ago.
“I was at my junior lawyer's admission ceremony in the Supreme Court of Queensland, and the chief justice talked about the fact that it's incumbent on the legal profession to be providing pro bono services”, Snow shared to Australasian Lawyer. “That is part of the oath that we take to the court - we've got a special skill set and we need to help people who are less vulnerable than ourselves”.
She spotlighted the annual Lilla Sports and Storytelling Festival, which is sponsored by Dentons, as another initiative young lawyers are often eager to get involved with.
“We bring together about 40 Indigenous children from a variety of schools for a weeklong camp, and we pick three or four of our top-performing pro bono associates to participate, fully paid. We work with those children through sport and talk about education, hopefully setting them up for something good”, Snow told Australasian Lawyer. “All of our young lawyers who are in the program and who've been there talk about it, and it’s something our young lawyers are aspiring to do”.
Hudson believes that young lawyers want to be able to say at the end of the day that they’ve made a difference.
“It’s very easy to get our young graduates to participate in pro bono – when they go home at night, they can say with sincerity that they've had a great day because they have been working with people with disabilities to make a difference to their lives”, Hudson told Australasian Lawyer. “That’s a powerful outcome for young lawyers and for our firm”.
