Many businesses in the City are active in Tower Hamlets, an area that, despite its close proximity to the City, is one of the most deprived boroughs in the UK. Over half the pupils are eligible for free school meals; around a quarter of the boroughs households have an income below £15,000 and unemployment is high at 14%. It is also a multi-cultural area - for 76% of pupils, English is their second language.
Volunteers from Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer from have been regularly providing free legal advice in the area for 35 years. It is this long relationship that makes this firm so exceptional. Year after year, trainees have handed on to each other the responsibility of providing advice for the public good at the Tower Hamlets Legal Advice Centre. It has become part of the fabric of the firm - which estimates that some 40% of current partners have provided advice at the centre at some point in their career including a current senior partner.
Over the years the firm's community and pro bono activities have become increasingly international, however Tower Hamlets is still very much at the core of the London office's activities. With Providence Row, they support another centre providing advice specifically to homeless people. And for almost 10 years, volunteers have been reading and number partners and governors at Redlands primary school, whilst the Whitechapel Mission benefits from regular team challenges. Indeed, in many ways these initiatives are the foundation for the firm's much wider CSR programme and commitments.
Yet for many people at the firm, and perhaps elsewhere too, it is their first involvement in this firm's now extensive community and pro bono programme. Over the years, the work hasn't changed much, and it rarely requires the expertise that has made this firm so successful, but the advice can be life changing for the people who receive it.