TrustLaw is the Thomson Reuters Foundation’s global pro bono legal programme. We connect the best law firms and corporate legal teams around the world with high-impact NGOs and social enterprises working to create social and environmental change. We produce groundbreaking legal research, and offer innovative training courses worldwide.
Through TrustLaw, over 100,000 lawyers offer their time and knowledge to help organisations achieve their social mission for free. This means NGOs and social enterprises can focus on their impact instead of spending vital resources on legal support.
TrustLaw works with over 450 legal teams across 170 countries that generously support the legal requests of TrustLaw NGO and social enterprise members for free.
Read the FAQs and download the free legal assistance brochure.
Each week, lawyers will receive an email listing pro bono projects available across the global network. Lawyers can submit an offer of interest for a project, and the NGO or social enterprise client will choose which legal team to work with. Selecting projects to support is entirely at the discretion of the lawyer.
Post a request for free legal assistance on TrustLaw’s online portal and then speak with TrustLaw about your legal needs. Once finalised, TrustLaw legal members will be able to see your legal request.
Lawyers in the network will have two weeks to volunteer to help. Then TrustLaw will send the offers of support to the NGO or social enterprise to select which legal team they would like to work with. If TrustLaw hasn’t found help by the end of the two-week period, we'll keep looking until we’ve found free legal assistance.
We have partnerships with grant-making organisations like The Stars Foundation, social enterprise support organisations such as Ashoka or UnLtd, and environmental groups such as the Whitely Fund for Nature. Referral partners share the same eligibility criteria as TrustLaw for supporting NGO and social enterprises. 2014 partners include:
The number of NGOs and social enterprises who are members of TrustLaw grows by the day. With a presence in over 170 countries globally, we support more than 2,000 organisations with free legal assistance.
An NGO is a non-government organisation that works to support social change. NGOs usually rely on donations to alleviate poverty, empower communities, support disadvantaged groups, advocate for rights, promote the arts or protect the environment. They can be small, working within their own community or can operate globally, they are autonomous from the government and are not-for-profit. Meet some of TrustLaw’s NGO members.
A social enterprise is a business that works towards tackling social problems. They are often commercial, which means they make a profit and sell goods to the public, however their ultimate goal is to reach their social or environmental mission. For example Thankyou is a TrustLaw social enterprise member in Australia, they sell bottled water and delicious muesli and donate all their profits to alleviate poverty. Another TrustLaw member is Nuru Energy who has introduced rechargeable lamps to villages in Rwanda, Kenya and India to prevent use of non-renewable energy sources.
Impact Award – projects that demonstrate significant, wide-ranging impact for an NGO or social enterprise, their community, and beyond.
Innovation Award – projects that feature not only a new and exciting idea or enterprise, but a legal team that used creativity in addressing the issues faced.
Collaboration Award – projects that showcase highly effective working relationships between legal teams, NGOs and social enterprises that have dramatically increased the potential impact of projects as a result.
Lawyer of the Year Award – An individual lawyer or team of lawyers who have gone above and beyond in providing exceptional pro bono support, nominated by a NGO or social enterprise.
Legal Team of the Year Award – teams that demonstrate dedication and enthusiasm in supporting pro bono clients in three categories: domestic law firm, international law firm, and in-house legal team.
The next TrustLaw Awards will be hosted in London in 2015.
Launched in 2014, the TrustLaw Index of Pro Bono looks at the amount of pro bono work law firms are undertaking on a country-by-country basis and identifies global trends in the pro bono marketplace. The first Index, compiled with data from over 100 firms, and representing 36,000 lawyers in 69 countries, showed that firms donated 1.55 million hours of free legal support in 2013 worth $388 million.
TrustLaw will be collecting data for the 2015 Index from 4 February 2015 for launch in May 2015. All law firms across the world are invited to contribute. For more information contact trustlaw@thomsonreuters.com.
As part of the 2015 Index, TrustLaw will also collect data for the Collaborative Plan for Pro Bono in the UK.
Through a mixture of lectures, panel discussions and interactive workshops, attendees gain an in-depth understanding of key legal issues facing the social enterprise and investment sector. This includes structuring advice for social enterprises, legal challenges for impact investors and investees, and different funding models including social impact bonds, charitable bonds and crowd-funding.
By attending a TrustLaw training you’ll meet leaders in the social innovation space, and hear from the experts shaping the sector and the investors that are backing its growth. Our first 2015 training will be held in New York on 18-19 May. See the agenda.
To view the full 2014 training agenda, visit here. Further courses are scheduled in San Francisco and London for 2015. Check this space for updates. For more information email: trustlaw@thomsonreuters.com
TrustLaw publications are legal resources that take an in-depth look at a legal issue in a number of countries. This may be in the form of a comparative analysis of laws in different countries, or a legal landscape analysis. These guides aim to help TrustLaw members advocate for legal reform, inform policy activities or propose legal amendments.
TrustLaw has produced a number of guides in collaboration with leading law firms to support the growth of social entrepreneurship, and to help NGOs and charities across the world. These guides are a vital tool for many organisations, and demonstrate the commitment TrustLaw legal members have for strengthening the social sector.