Pro Bono

If you need pro bono assistance for a matter that is in the public interest and have no other means of legal assistance available, email us at freehillsfoundation@Freehills.com.

Please understand that there is great demand for pro bono work and we are unable to accept all of the requests we receive. In addition to public interest, when we consider a pro bono request we need to have lawyers available who have expertise in that area of law, no conflict with another commercial or pro bono client.

All pro bono work is required to be done at the same standard of excellence as fee-paying work.

More information

Pro bono work has been part of Freehills since at least the late 19th century. It continued on an ad hoc and unrecorded basis until around 1991 when the first pro bono committee was established to administer the intake and distribution of pro bono work. In 2001, the inaugural National Pro Bono Coordinator, Annette Bain, was appointed to direct the growth of the pro bono program. Since then, the volume of work has tripled. In 2006, Annette was appointed Pro Bono Counsel and Executive Director, Freehills Foundation.

Our pro bono program includes:

• providing pro bono legal services to our pro bono clients
• The Shopfront Youth Legal Centre
• supporting community legal centres and legal clinics
• providing community legal education and mentoring to lawyers in the public interest sector

More information

Freehills assists more than 1000 pro bono clients every year. Pro bono work includes  transactional matters and litigation. Cases can range from advice to an appearance in the High Court of Australia. We partner with client organisations that work with communities of all shapes and sizes in Australia and overseas.

We help hundreds of people each year at The Shopfront Youth Legal Centre and at community legal centres. Most of our referrals are from existing pro bono clients, community legal centres or Freehills partners and staff with personal involvement in public interest activities.

Our intake is based on a public interest guideline. Many clients are not-for-profit organisations. We also assist individuals if the matter has a public interest and will result in systemic change at some level, perhaps by clarifying a point of law or setting a precedent.

Currently we have about 500 pro bono matters open nationally in addition to our secondment and legal clinic clients.

Charity law

With the growing demand for transparency and accountability in the not-for-profit sector, there has been an increase in the need for charities to obtain legal advice. Our Charity Law Focus Group specialises in servicing the needs of charities and foundations and is recognised throughout Australia as the leading team in this area. It was established in Melbourne by John Emerson and is now available in all our offices.

More information

The Shopfront Youth Legal Centre provides free legal assistance to homeless young people in inner Sydney. It was established in 1993 and is believed to be Australia’s oldest legal centre for homeless people. It is operated jointly by Freehills, The Salvation Army and Mission Australia. Freehills provide three legal positions and three legal support staff. The Shopfront is generally staffed by six permanent Freehills positions, including solicitors, a mental health social worker and support staff. We also second two lawyers to The Shopfront each year from our Sydney office.

In addition to legal services, staff provide community legal education and work collaboratively with other youth services to deliver a holistic service responsive to employment, housing and education needs. In addition to assisting around 600 individual cases each year, the centre advocates for systemic change that will benefit all homeless young people.

Shopfront lawyers refer matters to other Freehills lawyers working in-house. Our lawyers work closely on victim’s compensation matters, and take on other matters as required.

Freehills staff enthusiastically support our annual fundraising for Shopfront clients dubbed ‘Make it Christmas all year round for Shopfront kids’. Funds raised are used for clothing, such as shoes for a court appearance, travel tickets and phone cards to help kids keep in touch with family and friends throughout the year.

For more information on The Shopfront Youth Legal Centre visit  www.theshopfront.org.

More information

Freehills solicitors who want to undertake a period of public interest practice are encouraged to do so through a secondment to a community legal centre or to The Shopfront Youth Legal Centre. On returning to Freehills, secondees make a significant contribution to pro bono work.

We offer placements with:

• The Shopfront Youth Legal Centre
• Kingsford Legal Centre
• Women’s Legal Services NSW
• Public Interest Law Clearing Houses in Melbourne and Sydney.

Freehills Foundation maintains partnerships with public interest legal service providers in every state in which it has an office, providing solicitors with the opportunity to volunteer at the clinics. Our current partners include:

• QPILCH’s Homeless Persons’ Legal Service (HPLC) in Brisbane
• Mental Health Legal Centre Night Service in Melbourne
• Sussex Street Community Legal Service in Perth

Community legal centres

Kingsford Legal Centre

Kingsford Legal Centre (KLC) pursues a unique agenda: it endeavours to enhance access to justice for residents of the eastern suburbs of Sydney and provide a clinical training environment for law students of the University of New South Wales. Since 1992, Freehills solicitors seconded to KLC perform a dual role in providing advice to clients and acting as teachers and mentors for law students undertaking public practice studies.

Women’s Legal Services NSW

Funded by the Commonwealth and New South Wales state governments, Women’s Legal Services NSW is committed to facilitating access to and reform of the law in the interests of women. In addition to its metropolitan centres, Women’s Legal Services NSW runs five outreach centres in remote locations throughout NSW. Each year Freehills seconds two Sydney solicitors for a period of six months each to Walgett Family Violence Prevention Legal Service in far north western New South Wales.

Public Interest Law Clearing Houses, Victoria and New South Wales

The Public Interest Law Clearing House (PILCH) is an independent, not-for-profit referral service. Both in Sydney and Melbourne, PILCH refers matters of public interest involving community groups, not-for-profit organisations and disadvantaged individuals without the means to attain legal advice and who are ineligible for legal aid. Freehills solicitors are offered the opportunity to participate in the secondment program, during which they assist with the referral service, law reform submissions and case work, among other activities.

Legal clinics

QPILCH’s Homeless Persons’ Legal Service

The Queensland Public Interest Law Clearing House (QPILCH)’s Homeless Person’s Legal Service (HPLS) provides legal advice to Brisbane’s homeless in most areas of law. Recognising that many homeless people face complex pressures and that civil law problems are often the least of their priorities, HPLS delivers its services from the places that its clients already frequent rather than from a centralised location. This innovation has significantly improved homeless peoples’ access to justice. Volunteer solicitors attend welfare shelters and emergency accommodation centres and provide legal advice on a one-off or ongoing basis. As a member of QPILCH and supporting firm of HPLS, Freehills also accepts referral of matters requiring more substantial attention. Freehills and Minter Ellison run the clinic at Mission Australia’s Café One.

Mental Health Legal Centre Night Service

Located on Collins Street in Melbourne, the Mental Health Legal Service provides telephone advice to people who have experienced mental illness and who are otherwise precluded from accessing legal assistance. The centre is active in reforming relevant laws and seeks to raise awareness of its clients rights under the Victorian Mental Health Act 1986. Freehills solicitors are rostered on the centre’s evening service.

More information

Community legal education forms an integral part of Freehills Foundation’s pro bono program. It is our strong belief that education can facilitate access to justice and that providing information about the law can empower our clients to make more informed decisions with greater confidence.

Freehills Foundation conducts seminars for not-for-profit organisations to assist their professional development on matters of corporate governance. Particular emphasis is placed on taxation, privacy, directors’ duties, contracts and employee relations.

We offer seminars and mentoring programs for solicitors in the community and public interest legal sector, locally and internationally. We have also provided equipment and materials for lawyers in countries where those are difficult to obtain, for example in Timor-Leste.

More information

Crown appeal against lenient sentence

The Shopfront provides legal advice and representation for homeless and disadvantaged young people in Sydney’s inner city area. Last year we agreed to assist a Shopfront client, ‘Jason’ [not his real name], in a Crown appeal against the lenient sentences handed down for two robberies he committed. The matter was in the New South Wales Criminal Court of Appeal and judgment was entered in Jason’s favour on 21 December 2007.

In April 2006, Jason was involved in the robberies two men in their home using actual violence. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced in relation to these robberies in March 2007.

Jason grew up in Ghana and had a very traumatic childhood, during which he witnessing the brutal killing of his father. He emigrated from Ghana to Australia and suffered greatly from racial discrimination. He left school at an early age in order to work to support his mother and siblings when his mother could no longer work.

The judge took all the above factors into account and dismissed the appeal, taking into account the unique case of Jason, including not only the extraordinary, tragic and harsh circumstances of his childhood and youth, but also the substantial steps he had taken towards rehabilitation.

Successful settlement in discrimination claim

Freehills in Perth was approached by Sussex Street Community Law Centre and asked to assist with a disability discrimination claim brought by a 14 year old student and his mother. Freehills became involved once the matter had already progressed through the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission and the claim had been lodged with the Supreme Court.

The claim related to discrimination in education. The student in question suffers from dyslexia, a learning disability which is clearly contemplated by the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (Cth), but not recognised by the Department of Education and Training (department) as a mental or physical disability. The student, who is entering year 10 of high school this year, currently has the reading and writing ability of a seven year old child. This level of skill is alleged to have been caused by the department’s failure to provide appropriate educational assistance to a student suffering from dyslexia.

Freehills successfully negotiated a settlement of the claim. The settlement agreement included compensation which will be put towards private, in-school tutoring for the student by an appropriately qualified dyslexia specialist. The settlement also included a number of adjustments for the student’s future years of education to allow him to participate fully in all areas of his education.

The student’s family were delighted at achieving such as positive outcome. It was a huge relief to them after struggling for many years to gain any level of basic recognition from the department of their son’s disability.

Regulation of solariums

Freehills provided the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) with research assistance to consider the models used to regulate the solarium industry, both in Australia and overseas, and assess their merits and applicability in New South Wales. This issue had a lot of press coverage following the death of a young woman from skin cancer possibly related to the use of solariums. PIAC is working with the New South Wales Cancer Council to lobby the New South Wales Government to introduce a regulatory regime for solariums.

Indigenous workers’ rights secured

Freehills provided pro bono assistance to set up a corporate structure for a labour hire company run by a local Indigenous woman, supplying indigenous workers to a mine in the north-west of Western Australia.

The mine has a long history of working with the local indigenous community and encouraged them to set up an enterprise to supply labour to it on a contractual basis. Attempts by mining companies to employ indigenous people for 12 hours per day on a 14 day roster have failed for many reasons—one of which is that the many cultural obligations and activities necessary for life in an indigenous group can prevent or interfere with work.

The particular indigenous people from this western desert region only made contact with Europeans in the early 1960s. Therefore, being only one or two generations away from a traditional lifestyle, the group still practised many customary activities and there are many cultural gaps which made fitting into a western-orientated mining workforce difficult. 

The assistance provided by Freehills enabled a corporate structure to be established so that the labour hire company can now trade as an entity to ensure they retain their own cultural values and requirements. The indigenous workers hired through the company still work from 6.00am–6.00pm and do the same work as the other employees of the mine, but by engaging workers on a casual basis, the company is able to gain employment for the indigenous people which will not interfere with traditional activities. This helps to provide a balance between the traditional lifestyle of living in a remote community and the labour requirements of a large organisation.

More information