Pro Bono Week sees launch of Faculty of Advocates guide

The Faculty of Advocates is launching a pro bono guide to coincide with Pro Bono Week 2023 (6-10 November).

The guide covers publicly funded legal aid, pro bono services, and frontline advice organisations. It also lists online resources on legal issues, the legal process, and charities providing pro bono legal advice and/or support. Faculty hopes it will be further developed and improved by the Scottish pro bono community until it becomes an indispensable, comprehensive resource. It will be permanently hosted on the Pro Bono Week website.

Earlier this year, Faculty's Free Legal Services Unit ("FLSU") held an event for pro bono providers, at which it was recognised that it would be useful to have better data about the nature of pro bono legal services, and that better information should be provided to those in need of those services.

FLSU is also exploring how a data hub about the nature of pro bono services, to help fill gaps, clear overlaps, ease frictions and generally serve the administration of justice, might be achieved.

Writing in the Scotsman, Neil Mackenzie KC, Keeper of the Advocates Library, said that both the proposed data hub and the guide "are part of the Faculty of Advocates’ drive to better understand the pro bono legal environment, to create new and foster existing connections, and to improve the service offered by the FLSU, for example by offering training".

He added: "The launch of the guide marks a first but important step by pro bono providers, including the Faculty of Advocates and its event co-hosts, to help those in need to find free legal advice and other legal services."