Community contributions CSR and pro bono

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Community contributions CSR and pro bono

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Helping our communities address the challenges of COVID-19

Dentons takes its commitment to the communities it serves seriously—and our pro bono work reflects our entrepreneurial approach to solving problems in a complex world. As the world faced the unprecedented set of challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, Dentons developed and pursued pandemic-specific pro bono initiatives.

Dentons was the first global law firm to join Global Legal Solidarity, which seeks to connect non-profits, social enterprises and charities impacted by COVID-19 with pro bono legal advice. We have already been engaged in a wide variety of pro bono legal matters relating to the pandemic and its economic consequences, and launched a Pro Bono COVID-19 resources hub which includes a Government Announcement Tracker specifically geared to charities and NGOs, and a General Legal Checklist for Non-Profit Managers.

Providing greater access to justice

Dentons’ responsibility to provide society’s most vulnerable members with access to justice is core to who we are. Our pro bono work has improved the lives of first responders and frontline health workers, abuse victims in lockdown, refugees and asylum seekers, the homeless, the disabled, and the elderly. We have crafted tools to deliver justice for victims of human trafficking and slavery, battled discrimination against HIV-positive people, challenged the inaccessibility of a subway system to wheelchair-bound persons, obtained an order of protection against a sexual assailant and secured reversal of a decision denying medical benefits to a veteran suffering from depression, anxiety and PTSD.

And Dentons does not simply litigate cases and then walk away. We seek solutions that have a lasting impact on our communities. For example, after winning a decade-long battle to remedy widespread inadequacies in the care of mentally ill individuals in the Illinois state prison system in the US, we donated more than US$1.5 million to defray fees incurred by our legal aid partners and funded two fellowships to help monitor compliance with the court-ordered injunctive relief.

Innovating the delivery of pro bono services

In most law firms, connecting talent to pro bono opportunities can be a time-consuming and ad hoc process, with mixed results. To streamline the process, Dentons US co-developed a software-as-a-service platform with justice technology company Paladin that connects our lawyers with a greater variety of pro bono opportunities and legal service organizations, making it easier for our lawyers to find the projects they are most passionate about. The platform also complements our initiatives to make the Nextlaw Global Referral Network a vital provider of pro bono services, with the express goal of initiating or growing the pro bono infrastructure in countries where such assistance has historically been sparse.

Dentons believes we all have a shared responsibility for the well-being of our communities. We are proud of the relationships we have developed through our work in local communities, and the professional and personal development it affords us.

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