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Australia | Publication | December 2022
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:
Two of our key projects included:
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:
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:
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:
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.
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:
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:
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