Jon Robins traces the origins of pro bono & examines how it is faring in these harsh economic times
In 1939, the Manchester Law Society, in a scheme backed by some 70 local firms, advised 4,290 people who otherwise would not have been able to afford legal advice.
I mention this to put the 11th National Pro Bono Week, which took place this month, into historical context. Lawyers have been offering free legal advice to clients, who wouldn’t otherwise secure access to justice, long before they started calling it “pro bono”—and without feeling the need to issue press releases like the one I received this month claiming that the “total value of pro bono work” was “around £456m per year”.
In fact, it was the radical lawyer, John Cooke—who led the prosecution of Charles I—who made the case for an organised legal aid system, which relied on lawyers providing free services, in his book The Poor Man’s Case published in 1648. The Manchester poor man lawyers’ scheme was the largest outside of London—coverage elsewhere was a bit hit and miss; more “miss” than “hit”
