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Community Engagement

Community engagement is a core part of Mishcon de Reya’s approach to responsible business and encompasses pro bono, volunteering, fundraising, and charitable giving. Our commitment reflects our core values and our aim to increase access to law and create opportunity.

Through our pro bono work, we seek to provide high quality legal advice and representation to individuals, charities and community groups who would otherwise be unable to afford such advice or representation. We believe that we have a responsibility as legal professionals to use our skills and expertise to make a positive impact on the world around us. We encourage all our lawyers to dedicate a portion of their time to pro bono work, promoting equal access to justice and contributing to a more compassionate society.

Download our Community Engagement strategy

Improving Access to Law

Focusing on projects and initiatives that work to remove barriers to ensure that anyone can access the law, including legal education, and using technology to increase access to law.

Creating Opportunity

Playing a crucial and strategic role in unlocking opportunity and driving a level playing field for all people focusing on projects related to social mobility, racial equality, gender equity and empowerment.

Pro bono

At Mishcon, our commitment to pro bono work reflects our core values and our aim to increase access to law and create opportunity. Through our pro bono efforts, we seek to provide high-quality legal advice and representation to individuals who would otherwise be unable to afford it, as well as to charities and community groups. We believe in the power of the law and our responsibility as legal professionals to use our skills to make a positive impact. We encourage all our lawyers to dedicate a portion of their time to pro bono work.

We are proud to be a Pro Bono Charter Signatory which reflects our commitment to improving access to justice.

The Law Society Pro Bono certification

Below are some of the legal clinics our lawyers support:

Queen Mary Legal Advice Centre

We are proud to have a long-standing pro bono partnership with Queen Mary University of London and their Legal Advice Centre, with initiatives including:

Black Justice Project
We offer free legal advice for members of the Black community on employment discrimination, actions against police and immigration matters relating to the Windrush scandal.

Pink Law
We offer free legal advice supervising students from Queen Mary University London to members of the LGBT+ community on discrimination, family, and immigration matters.

SPITE (Sharing and Publishing Images to Embarrass)
SPITE provides victims of revenge porn with specialist free legal advice in matters of criminal law, civil law, privacy law, family law, as well as extensive practical advice. Lawyers and law students work closely with the Revenge Porn Helpline to ensure that clients have full assistance in removing images which are posted online.

RCJ Advice Centre

Our lawyers volunteer for the RCJ Advice Bureau, London's largest Citizen's Advice Bureau, providing free advice to litigants in person in the civil and family courts.

University of Law Clinics

We volunteer at monthly online legal clinics providing free legal advice verbally to pro bono clients relating to corporate and family matters. The University of Law students observe and question the volunteer lawyer on the advice given.

Working Families

Working Families is the UK’s work-life balance charity. Their mission is to remove the barriers that people with caring responsibilities face in the workplace. They provide free legal advice to parents and carers on their rights at work. Our volunteers assist with legal queries that families might have on their rights as workers.

Recent pro bono highlights

Ruth Ellis

Ruth Ellis was executed at the age of 28 after being convicted of murder. Her grandson, Stephen Beard, and his family believe crucial evidence was not presented at her trial, leading to Ruth being wrongly convicted and sentenced to capital punishment. Although the late Lord Victor Mishcon, founder of Mishcon de Reya, did not represent Ruth at trial, he attempted to intervene on her behalf shortly before her execution. Now, Mishcon has been instructed by Stephen Beard to seek a posthumous pardon, arguing that new evidence demonstrates Ruth should not have received capital punishment. While a pardon does not overturn a conviction, the family hopes it will serve as formal recognition by the British state of a miscarriage of justice.

Not a Phase

Our Pride Committee has carried out in[1]depth pro bono research for Not A Phase, a UK charity supporting trans+ adults, focusing on the process of obtaining a Gender Recognition Certificate. We explored the key benefits of holding a certificate and developed an accessible resource to help empower the trans+ community. This resource aims to support individuals in navigating legal pathways available to them, offering tools to better protect their rights and identities.

Age UK Telephone Befriending Service

Age UK's telephone befriending service matches volunteers with an older person for a 30-minute call once a week. The service has helped create hundreds of new friendships and for many older people, the call is the highlight of their week.

Chapter One

Chapter One is a virtual reading scheme for primary aged children where volunteers commit 30 minutes per week during term time over the course of the academic year.

Speak Street

Speak Street is a monthly fun, social and engaging opportunity to support refugees and migrants to develop English skills at some of London’s most inspiring galleries and museums. The sessions are led by a Speak Street qualified ESOL teacher, who plans and directs each session.

Young Citizens

We were pleased to partner with the charity Young Citizens for the Big Legal Lesson 2024, a national campaign offering free classroom resources to allow more young people to learn about the law. We also volunteer for the Legal Experts in Schools programme which partners our volunteers with young people from local secondary schools to help with their understanding of the law and how it relates to their lives.

The firm commits to significant core charitable partnerships, closely aligned with our key areas of focus. Current key partners include U-Go with which we are funding 100 scholarships for women in low-income countries to pursue higher education and the Lewa Education Programme, part of the Lewa Wildlife Conservancy in Kenya, supporting Ngare Ndare primary and secondary schools, by funding teacher salaries.

We also support the passions and interests of individuals at the firm through departmental fundraising, match funding through MishMatch and our quarterly Discretionary Fund, the charity recipients being chosen by the firm.

We also encourage our people to support charities that they are passionate about through fundraising and sponsorship of events and challenges. Recent challenges include 5km runs, 10km runs, half marathons, marathons, ultra marathons, 100 mile bike rides, quizzes, bake sales, raffles and sweepstakes.

Improving Access to Law