Community Impact

We believe that, to be successful, our business must have a positive social impact.

Community impact strategy

We are an integral part of the communities - global and local - in which we operate and believe that supporting these communities is part of our responsibility as a business.

In particular, we believe that it is our duty - as a leading international law firm - to help level the playing field by improving access to justice, access to education and access to professional opportunities for disadvantaged groups. We focus on using the skills and experience of our people and the resources of our business to have a positive impact on society.

Community impact Programme

Our Social Impact programme is made up of our diverse pro bono practice and impactful community investment initiatives focused on the following:

• Access to Justice
• Strategic Charity Partnerships
• Access to Opportunity

Some examples of our initiatives include:

• Participation in the Greece Pro Bono Collaborative - training and deploying our lawyers to Athens and the Greek Island of Lesvos to support asylum seekers.
• Supporting individual survivors of the Windrush scandal in their fight for justice - we are one of the leading law firms in the Windrush Legal Initiative, working alongside our legal charity partner, Greater Manchester Immigration Aid Unit, and seven other firms.
• Partner-led teams from across our UK offices have been collaborating with frontline legal services charity Zacchaeus 2000 Trust (Z2K) to provide free representation for people challenging unfair disability benefit decisions by the Department for Work and Pensions.
• Working with the CRS Foundation charity partners to share legal expertise and the skills of our business support teams, for example providing support with communications, project management and training and development opportunities.
• Our Career Start programme, which works with young people to help them understand more about careers in professional services and to build their employability skills.

Social Impact 2024 - 2025

Community investment

• 232 community investment volunteers
• 1,825 community investment (non-legal) volunteer hours
• 23% of our people in the UK giving their time to community investment activities

Impact - Community investment

• 9 key charity partners of the Charles Russell Speechlys Foundation provided with capacity building professional skills support
• 40 young people provided with mentoring or work experience and 20 attended insight days
• 100% of students on our outreach programme saw an improvement in their communication and interview skills

Pro bono

• 60% of UK fee-earners participating in pro bono work
  • 12,114 pro bono hours
  • 352 lawyers
  • 24.97 hours per fee earner

Impact - Pro bono

• 80+ organisations provided with pro bono legal advice
• 900+ individuals supported with pro bono legal advice