Background Information
Developing a pro bono aspirational target in Australia
The subject of implementing a voluntary minimum target for pro bono has been the subject of increasing attention in Australia over the past 5 or 6 years. The American Bar Association Models Rules of Professional Conduct have, since 1993, included a voluntary pro bono goal of at least 50 hours of pro bono work per lawyer per year. Other aspirational pro bono targets exist. (see links below).
Recommendations for the implementation of a voluntary minimum target in Australia have come from a number of sources:
- In 1998, the Law Society of NSW’s Access to Justice Task Force Report recommended establishing a voluntary “minimum pro bono commitment”
- 1999 the Law Institute of Victoria resolved to encourage its members to dedicate one hour per week to pro bono work.
- In 2000 the Pro Bono Working Group convened by the President of the Law Society of NSW recommended that the Law Society issue a voluntary pro bono target for all members.
- In 2000, the Australian Law Reform Commission Report No. 79 Managing Justice: A Review of the Federal Civil Justice System (2000) recommended that legal professional associations urge their members to undertake pro bono work each year
- In 2002, the Chesterman Review of the New South Wales Solicitors and Barristers Rules commissioned by the NSW Attorney-General recommended that consideration be given to including an aspirational target of a prescribed number of pro bono hours within the Solicitor’s Professional Conduct and Practice Rules.
Despite the above recommendations, no Australian State, Territory or national legal professional association has implemented an aspirational target within its professional conduct rules and differing views persist in those organisations about the merits of such a course.
The Centre and a number in the profession believed that now is the appropriate time for the leaders in the delivery of pro bono legal services to adopt and promulgate their own set of principles and voluntary target and so this happened in April 2007.
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Links to Aspirational Pro Bono Targets and Initiatives elsewhere
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