Pro bono impact - 2022 in review

At Norton Rose Fulbright in Australia, it is our privilege to be able to use our specialist legal skills to make a positive social impact. Pro bono has been part of our firm’s cultural make-up and community spirit for many years, and is embedded in our business.

This year we launched a refreshed pro bono strategy as part of our focus on increasing our contribution in the community, building stronger client relationships and enabling our lawyers to develop their legal skills.

Driven by our pro bono legal practice group, throughout 2022 our work has focused on our three impact pillars of Environment & Sustainability, Mental Health & Disability and International Human Rights, with a particular focus on social change and benefiting First Nations communities.

Here are some of the key highlights of the work we have done to support our pro bono clients under the impact pillars of our strategy:

Environment & Sustainability 

Two of our key projects included:

• Collaborating with our commercial client, Pfizer, on the Firesticks project. This work involved identifying opportunities and barriers for Indigenous Land Management cultural burning practices across Australia for a First Nations client in the space. A particular focus was their insurance position and any indemnity provisions available by jurisdiction with respect to different land tenures.
• Assisting a client with its project to develop Australia’s first large-scale solar garden, an innovative new model for solar energy for those unable to install rooftop solar panels.

Mental Health & Disability 

We have undertaken some impactful legal projects that assist individuals suffering from poor mental health or living with disabilities. Some of the key highlights include:

• Acting for various individuals living with disabilities who have experienced discrimination because of their disability.
• Undertaking systemic advocacy and law reform in relation to the mental health legal system across Australia, particularly reforms in areas within the mental health system which impact on First Nations individuals.
• Providing support to various disability and mental health focused charities and not-for-profits in their operational and governance matters.
• Providing support and legal assistance to our key community legal centre partners including Queensland Advocacy for Inclusion, Australian Centre for Disability Law, Disability Discrimination Legal Service, Ruah Community Services and Mental Health Legal Centre.
• Assisting Ruah Community Services with the many legal aspects of the planning for the new purpose-built, state-of-the-art building, the Ruah Centre for Women and Children in Western Australia. 

International Human Rights

Refugees

In response to the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan in 2021, we increased our support for pro bono work for refugees in 2022. In addition to sending pro bono graduates on secondment to various refugee based community legal centres including the Immigration Advice & Rights Centre, Refugee Advice & Casework Service, Refugee Legal and Refugee & Immigration Legal Service, our lawyers have also staffed various legal clinics to assist Afghans overseas to prepare applications for humanitarian visas. We have subsequently assisted Afghans with visa applications for their family members who remain in Afghanistan.  

Through the clinics, we have assisted and continue to assist over 200 Afghan individuals (particularly those at risk of persecution) to relocate to Australia, including: 

• Assisting three former judges of the Afghan Supreme Court to apply for and obtain permanent residency in Australia.
• Assisting various individuals at high risk of persecution in Afghanistan to apply for refugee visas in Australia including two senior management personnel associated with a large Afghan media station, a single female who was a campaigner for women’s rights and a number of individuals connected with foreign governments or agencies including NATO, USAID and UN-Habitat development work.
• Assisting unaccompanied minors who were considered high risk individuals to prepare split-family visa applications to reunite them with their family in Australia. 
• Obtaining permanent residency for an Afghan woman (and her children) who was a victim of forced marriage and domestic violence. 

Modern Slavery

We continue to support Anti-Slavery Australia (ASA) in various ways. In addition to providing ASA with two graduate secondees in 2022, we have assisted with reviewing Australian legal regimes in relation to coercive control in the context of modern slavery crimes. This work has allowed ASA to advocate for the multi-jurisdictional unity and understanding of open-door slavery crimes. 

Our lawyers have also assisted ASA in their individual casework in 2022, which has contributed to a number of positive outcomes for ASA clients, including:

• Successfully reuniting a mother who was the victim of modern slavery offences with her children. The mother had been separated from her children and we applied for permanent visas for the children to relocate to Australia.
• Supporting a client who had been the subject of modern slavery offences to return to Australia after an extended period overseas.
• Supporting a client who had been trafficked overseas as a minor to return to Australia.
• Assisting a client who had been the subject of modern slavery offences to successfully apply for a protection visa to permanently remain in Australia due to risks to her personal safety in her home country. 

We also collaborated with the Clean Energy Council to research and compile a report that raises awareness of modern slavery across the clean energy industry. It outlines several strategies and actions that the industry can take to eliminate modern slavery from clean energy supply chains.

First Nations 

In conjunction with the recent launch of our Stretch Reconciliation Action Plan 2022-2025, we have made a commitment to ensure that, from FY23 onwards, at least 10% of our pro bono work will be work contributing to First Nations communities. 

In 2022, amongst other matters, we: 

• Provided practical and strategic start-up tax and governance advice to various First Nations-led not-for-profits and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island organisations across Australia.
• Sent a secondee to the Towards Truth Project, a first-of-its-kind project being run by the Indigenous Law Centre and Public Interest Advocacy Centre to document the policies that have regulated First Nations people’s rights since colonisation.

Pro Bono Secondments 

As part of cultivating a strong pro bono culture among newly graduated and qualified lawyers at our firm, our graduate lawyers are able to undertake a pro bono secondment in one of our many community legal centre partners as part of their graduate program. 

In 2022, our graduate lawyers were seconded to:

• Anti-Slavery Australia
• Refugee Advice Casework Service
• Immigration Advice and Rights Centre
• Caxton Legal Centre
• Queensland Advocacy for Inclusion
• Circle Green Community Legal
• Public Interest Advocacy Centre
• Human Rights Law Centre
• Australian Pro Bono Centre
• Mental Health Law Centre
• Consumer Credit Legal Service WA
• Refugee Legal