In touch community report 2006

Spring 2007

To the benefit of all

Last year I talked about our international practice – and the individuals within it – building relationships with the wider community that are mutually beneficial. That emphasis continues. In this year’s report, and as we prepare for our move to a new headquarters, we focus on activities in London.

We describe our involvement with the community and our mentoring of young people; we also give some examples of our fundraising activities and our pro bono work.

Our relationship with the colourful world of Barretstown continues to thrive, to the benefit of all concerned.

Patrick Farrell
Pro bono and community affairs partner

In the community

In 2005 the Unicorn Theatre moved into its new home in More London, the prestigious riverside development on the south bank of the Thames between London Bridge and the Tower of London. The Unicorn is a children’s theatre and education centre, and its new building was purpose-built for children to use. It is a tangible example of innovation, and we are pleased to have had the chance to support its work through our Charitable Foundation.

No less so because soon we shall be neighbours. In 2007 we move to 3 More London, our new international headquarters, designed by Foster and Partners. We are delighted to be a part of the urban regeneration taking place in this part of London. More London is a completely new development in one of London’s oldest neighbourhoods. It’s near theatres, cafés, shops and museums; it’s also near homes and schools. We are joining a local community, adding to the rich history of the area.

This move is our first chance as a major organisation to have a say about the impact on the environment that our headquarters will make. Our building conforms to regulations so new that they will not come into force until well after work on the building is complete. The whole space will be accessible for everyone. Our environmental policy is under review to embrace new thinking about issues like carbon offsetting, sustainability and the Equator Principles. We are preparing for More London with an eye to the future.

Taking up residence by the river

The prospect of moving to More London has reignited the debate on what we mean by our environmental awareness. We already recycle paper; this move gives us the opportunity to recycle on a much larger scale. We already promote gym membership and sporting activities; this move enables us to do that and more besides, by encouraging people to cycle in, for instance. We already turn off the lights: this move allows us to address the major issue of energy consumption and carbon emissions by devising smarter ways of consuming our heating, lighting and insulation.

Deirdre Walker
London managing partner

In the schools

One of the most enjoyable things we do is support programmes for schoolchildren and young people. Volunteers among us put their lunch times and evenings to use, working with children on activities not otherwise available to them.

In London, around 100 people volunteer for weekly mathematics, literacy and information technology sessions at primary schools close to the office. These sessions are a product of our close and rewarding relationship with Tower Hamlets Education Business Partnership.

Some people are school governors at our partner schools. Some run free coaching schemes for children who want to learn cricket and netball. The latest initiative is to set up a chess club.

Our involvement does not stop with primary schools. Some of our people choose to become mentors to teenagers at Swanlea Secondary School in the Whitechapel area of London. The idea is, through regular contact, to give the student an understanding of the business world and a feel for the career opportunities open to them. The benefits are mutual: one can gain a lot from sharing the experience of one’s own career path.

Changing perceptions

The number partners’ programme gives the children more confidence in their ability to deal with numbers. They become more prepared to work out the answer to a difficult mathematical question. And it’s an opportunity for them to test the skills they learn with me in class in a one-to-one session.

Chris Perkins
Teacher
Globe Primary School, London

Tackling tough issues

Last year, three secondary schools in London decided to run a joint annual Pupil Parliament and they approached us for help, because we were already working with them on a mentoring programme. The first session was in October, at our London offices, and covered issues from sports and ICT facilities to crime, graffiti and vandalism. A report of the proceedings has gone to the Mayor of London and the Prime Minister.

Carolann Edward
Norton Rose

Literacy: We bought - and then donated - children’s books, helping Virginia Primary School to set up this library. Frederic Demay volunteers each week at the school.

At work

We have a responsibility to take an active role in society, using our legal and other skills for the benefit of the public. Everyone in Norton Rose has the chance to do something in support of our chosen charities.

The Norton Rose Charitable Foundation co-ordinates our international donations and fundraising activities. The Foundation is a UK registered charity and its funds - which have been donated by the partners - are separate from the business interests of Norton Rose.

Charitable Foundation trustees

• Simon FT Cox
• Patrick Farrell
• David Lewis
• Campbell Steedman
• Valerie Ross (Secretary)

Pro bono committee

• Charlotte Burles
• Julie Carriere
• Margaret Coltman
• Alexander Cosgrove
• Marion Edge
• Carolann Edwards
• Patrick Farrell
• Bob Haken
• Ann Halpern
• Emma Humphries
• Jonathan Keats
• Rebecca Oliver
• Andrew Peat
• Nicola Pickering
• Shaun Savory
• Chloe Sheppick
• Emily Smith

Staff charity committee

• Gail Bassett
• Claire Berwick
• Kate Crisp
• Sarah Cullen
• Kathryn Emmett
• Danielle Keogh
• Frieda Levycky
• Susan Neighbour
• Hannah Pearce
• Lauren Porter
• John Simpkins

Supporting

• Action for Blind People
• Addaction
• Alzheimer’s Research Trust
• Architects for Aid
• Bangkok tsunami project
• Barretstown
• British Heart Foundation
• Chai Cancer Care
• City Gateway
• CLIC Sargent
• Crisis
• Cystic Fibrosis Trust
• DebRA 
• DEMAND
• Evelina Children’s Trust
• Ghurka Welfare Trust
• Harvest Trust
• Headway
• Keepers of the Green
• LEPRA 
• London Bombings Relief Charitable Fund
• Lord Mayor’s Appeal 2006 (Treloars)
• Lymphoma Association
• Macmillan Cancer Relief
• Maggie’s Cancer Care Trust
• Mansion House Scholarship Scheme
• Marie Curie Cancer Care
• MediCinema
• MENCAP 
• Merlin
• Music in Hospitals
• National Hospital for Neurology & Neurosurgery
• National Autistic Society
• Orbis
• Oxford University
• Richard House Children’s Hospice
• RNLI City of London III Appeal
• Royal British Legion Poppy Appeal
• Sarah Matheson Trust
• SENSE 
• Shelter 
• SIGN 
• Solicitors Benevolent Association
• South West London Law Centres
• St Christopher’s Hospice
• St Margaret Lothbury
• Stroke Association
• The Prince’s Trust
• Tower Hamlets
• Trinity Hospice
• Trinity House
• UNICEF 
• (South Asia Earthquake Children’s Appeal)
• University College, London
• Viva Network
• Vocaleyes “Walk the Walk” (breast cancer)
• Wellbeing
• WellChild
• Zamcog, Zambia (Robert Shitima & St Francis’ Schools)

In the field

In public view

Anyone joining us is encouraged to take part in our pro bono schemes, where we undertake legal work without charge for people who cannot afford to pay and for causes that we support. We approach our pro bono work with the same integrity with which we approach our client work and we aim to give the same quality of service.

The London office has a long tradition of pro bono work, and other offices, such as Paris, where a pro bono team has just been set up, are keen to progress their fledgling pro bono programmes.

For over 20 years, Norton Rose volunteers in London have advised at evening drop-in legal advice surgeries at the Tower Hamlets Law Centre in Whitechapel. More recently we have established a partnership with Wandsworth and Merton Law Centre, enabling the Centre to provide an additional weekly evening surgery at its Tooting office. These surgeries concentrate on advice in employment, consumer, private tenancy and small claim matters.

Some people also work regularly for the Free Representation Unit: this provides representation before tribunals where legal aid is not available.

Other organisations we work with include the Citizens’ Advice Bureau in the Royal Courts of Justice, the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, the Capital Cases Panel, HM Prison Service, Oxfam and the Environmental Law Foundation.

Empowering others

My normal work is for international corporates, so I like the fact that, through pro bono, I can work locally. Tower Hamlets Law Centre is near where I live and in a community I care about. Many of the people who attend have English as their second language and are worried by issues they need help to understand. Our role is often to explain the issues properly and, through constructive legal advice, empower them to resolve the issue. Sometimes it is hard to get away from the office, but I just have to manage my time so that I can attend.

Alexander Cosgrove
Norton Rose

Winning the case

My first involvement with FRU was taking a case before the Employment Tribunal. My colleague Esha and I acted for a cleaner who had lost his job and was owed wages and holiday pay. He could not afford legal representation and his English was not very good, so we also arranged for an interpreter to be at the tribunal. We won the case. Most rewarding of all was the fact that, although not a big case in financial terms compared to the usual claims we deal with at Norton Rose, it was of great importance to our client, who had lost his livelihood and felt he had been treated unfairly. He was delighted with the result.

Adrian Hoggarth
Norton Rose

Pro bono: Peter Knight delivers regular pro bono sessions at this law centre in London.

Scope for action

Rebecca Oliver
Pro bono committee
Norton Rose

In Barretstown

Our relationship with Barretstown is at the centre of our community work. We get as much out of this partnership as they do.

Barretstown provides a programme of therapeutic recreation for children with cancer and other serious illnesses.

Barretstown castle is at Ballymore Eustace, Co Kildare in Ireland.

Through their achievements they stop seeing themselves as ‘sick kids’ and begin to regain their own inner strength, confidence and self-esteem.

The programme is backed by leading medical specialists as a valuable part in a child’s recovery from serious illnesses.

The parents do not pay anything. Funding comes from individuals and from institutions.

Barretstown has served over 11,000 children from 22 dierent European countries since it opened in 1994.

Trying something new

Last November all the lawyers in the property, planning and environmental teams went to Barretstown for a charity and training weekend. Our aim was to focus on team building, help out with a maintenance job that needed doing and conduct our annual training day in a new environment.

Before we went, the secretaries on our team held a Barretstown cake sale and bought a karaoke machine, two guitars and 12 painting packs. The weekend began with a reception in the drawing room. After a lemonade or two, a few of us entertained the troops with a medley of Britney Spears’ greatest hits.

The next morning we rose early to tackle our task: to paint three children’s cottages with bright, colourful designs. Although the prospect of drawing outlines and colouring in was of course a busman’s holiday for a batch of property lawyers, some of us were unaccountably nervous. Our teamworking tradition came to the fore just in time and we set the artistic members of the team the task of stencilling, while the rest of us waited to start the tricky and painstaking work of colouring in.

Our reward was good food and a chance to dance the night away. The next day was given over to training; and where better to develop our practice than in a castle? The weekend was a huge success, and Barretstown stayed with me for a long time afterwards. I’ve been wondering why that was, and I’ve reached the conclusion that it’s because lawyers live in an insular world. We spend all our time with other lawyers, discussing the law or meeting with clients. This was a bit more radical than we were used to. It’s a humbling experience when you do something out of your work sphere.

Wasim Khan
Norton Rose

Our involvement is physical, almost visceral; that doesn’t happen often with lawyers
Parrick Farrell
Norton Rose

For the bereaved

The session that I participated in was a bereavement camp for families who had lost a child to a serious illness. I was curious to see how therapeutic recreation – the core principle behind Barretstown’s work – could be combined with the incredible hurt and grief which come from the loss of a child. The result was one of the most powerful, moving and magical weekends I have ever spent. In the evening, the adults and older children gathered for a quiet time called “Reflection”... Poems were read, music was played, and all of us – even the caras – were encouraged to grieve for our individual losses...

A Memorial Service was held on the last evening of camp. We gathered in the Reflection circle, and then we walked to the lake, down a path lit by lights. Each of us was given a silver balloon. Some words were spoken, and a song was played. We were told to release our balloons whenever we were ready, and, somehow, letting go of that balloon became another kind of letting go altogether.

Elizabeth Ranagan
Norton Rose

After the rain the sun

After a morning of induction, in true Irish fashion the mist (aka heavy downpour of rain) came down over Barretstown.

Another girl and I were assigned as caras to a family from Dublin. The kids ranged in age from 2 to 6 and were great crack to work with. The 4-year-old Sean had a brain tumour and was visually impaired as a result but his sisters didn’t let him get away with anything. It was a real breath of fresh air to work with these kids and really makes you pause for thought when you think you’ve had a bad day at the office.

 

Friday night was a mixture of story telling and skits and everyone was left wondering where Merlin’s magic wand had disappeared to.

Saturday dawned early. The sun came out after breakfast, and, once the parents had headed o, we split up into groups and, depending on their ages, the kids did everything from ziplining to fishing, pottery, horse riding and archery.

Saturday night was a special night where the parents got a chance to spend some time alone and entrusted their kids to us as we dressed up in daft costumes and naively volunteered for audience participation activities – which inevitably ended in us being covered in yoghurt,water or shaving foam. Naturally the kids thoroughly enjoyed this ritual humiliation of the adults.

Grainne McCarthy
Norton Rose

Our involvement We help them contact other countries, we advise them on property issues, and we arrange legal advice. We work as volunteers and we raise funds for them. This is not a one-o annual fund-raising activity. It’s not a relationship conducted at a distance. We are in it for the long term. The opportunities for involvement are tremendous. We have already held a training and development day there for our property and environment lawyers, and now the whole of our finance department wants to go out there. We have an ongoing project to create a sensory garden on the site. Barretstown is about “serious fun”. It’s not quantifiable, but we think that our contact with them will, over time, help our people to think more creatively. Fresh perspectives tend to produce fresh thinking. www.barretstown.org