About us
TrustLaw was created to spread excellence in the practice of pro bono and drive social change worldwide.
Free legal assistance: Our free legal service enables NGOs and social enterprises to streamline operations, expand into new countries and scale their impact. This helps them focus on their mission without spending valuable resources on their legal needs.
Research: Our research programmes are powerful advocacy tools that enable TrustLaw’s NGO and social enterprise members to achieve unprecedented legal and policy reforms and strengthen the rule of law. We have helped change legislation to support victims of violence, assisted advocacy efforts to combat sex discrimination and supported legal reform activities to strengthen the rights of the LGBT community.
Training and events: We run accredited legal training on social enterprise and impact investing as well as capacity-building workshops and webinars to provide practical guidance on legal issues relevant to NGOs and social enterprises.
Tools and resources: TrustLaw produces a wide range of tools to help our NGO and social enterprise members address their legal needs and support their advocacy efforts. We also provide legal teams with the resources to build and strengthen their pro bono practice, navigate regulatory requirements and engage in successful pro bono partnerships.
Where we are
The TrustLaw team is spread around the globe, with staff in Argentina, Hong Kong, India, Kenya, Mexico, Spain, Thailand, the UK and the US.
Free Legal Assistance
Our free legal service enables NGOs and social enterprises to streamline operations, expand into new countries and scale their impact. This helps them focus on their mission without spending valuable resources on their legal needs.
We work with hundreds of legal teams representing over 120,000 lawyers who volunteer their time, skills and expertise to help NGOs and social enterprises achieve their social mission.
Through TrustLaw, lawyers can provide free legal assistance to organisations facing challenges that transcend borders, enhancing the spread and depth of pro bono work in jurisdictions relatively unfamiliar to the practice.
How it Works
TrustLaw is a completely free service. Once they become members, NGOs and social enterprises can request free legal support, and lawyers can volunteer to work on projects that interest them.
Infographic for NGOs and Social Enterprises Infographic for Lawyers
Our Members
TrustLaw is the largest global pro bono network with over 4,000 members across more than 175 countries. We work with hundreds of legal teams representing over 120,000 lawyers who generously provide free legal support to thousands of NGOs and social enterprises.
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Legal
TeamsTrustLaw has regional and global reach. Our network includes both large international law firms and smaller domestic firms, in-house legal teams and individual lawyers. All members are qualified in their respective jurisdictions and meet local bar association requirements.
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NGOs and
Social EnterprisesWith a presence in over 175 countries, we support more than 3,000 organisations with free legal assistance. Our NGO and social enterprise members address a wealth of different issues, including women’s rights, human trafficking and slavery, refugees and forced migration, LGBT rights, freedom of expression, environmental and land rights.See our membership criteria for NGOs and social enterprises.
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Referral
PartnersOur Referral Partner network of funders and award bodies ensures that we can have the widest reach possible. Through these partnerships, we aim to support their grantees, fellows, members and award winners with free legal assistance.
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Our Impact
TrustLaw is the world’s largest facilitator of free legal services. Since we launched just over six years ago, we have generated the equivalent of $85 million in free legal assistance to NGOs and social enterprises on the frontlines of social change.
We have supported grassroots organisations to employ their first staff members, helped vulnerable women access loans to start their first businesses and brought renewable energy lighting to slums. Free legal assistance on these projects has made a significant impact on local communities working to overcome poverty and discrimination.
Our research programmes are powerful advocacy tools that enable our NGO and social enterprise members to achieve groundbreaking legal and policy reforms and strengthen the rule of law. We have crafted tools to deliver justice for victims of human trafficking and slavery, assisted advocacy efforts to combat sex discrimination and improved policies to help diagnose HIV/AIDS.
Stories of Impact
Read the latest stories of impact featuring the lawyers, NGOs and social enterprises committed to using the law to fight for social change.
TrustLaw Awards
The TrustLaw Awards is an annual ceremony to celebrate groundbreaking pro bono work undertaken by legal teams on behalf of NGOs and social enterprises around the world.
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 excellence working relationships between legal teams, NGOs and social enterprises.
Lawyer of the Year Award: an individual lawyer or team of lawyers who have provided exceptional pro bono support.
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.
2017 Awards
The 2017 TrustLaw Awards were held on 28 September in London. This year’s event was opened with a keynote speech by Alan Rusbridger, Chair of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism and former Editor-in-Chief of the Guardian, and was hosted by Monique Villa, CEO of the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Visit Site2017 Winners
Index of Pro Bono
The TrustLaw Index of Pro Bono is the first global survey measuring the amount of pro bono practised by law firms across the world.
By highlighting successful pro bono programmes and providing benchmarks on pro bono participation and related trends in different jurisdictions, the Index is an vital tool to help spread the practice of pro bono.
It offers all firms a unique resource to help build robust pro bono practices, and to understand how to get the greatest impact from their pro bono work.
The 2016 Index collected data from over 130 firms, representing 64,500 lawyers in 75 countries.
Our data shows lawyers donated 2.5 million hours of their time assisting charities, non-profits, social enterprises, and individuals free of charge. On average lawyers committed one week (39.2 hours) to pro bono.