As my film premiered, on the 3rd of November 2024, pro bono week fell in the same week. Before I embarked on the international film tour, I decided to launch a reduced fee conference package to assist people in accessing justice in a more affordable way.
I would like to share my journey for the benefit of advocates, and those who seek legal advice. In this article, I will share how I restructured my ‘pro bono’ work once I had distinguished it from ‘free legal advice’. Stay with me on this, readers, you will understand what I mean as you read on.
Whilst I fully appreciate the constraints, we, advocates, face in terms of time, I genuinely believe, if we work in a structured manner, we could help more people in accessing justice or at least empowering them on how to do so.
In this article, I want to share my journey, to aid fellow advocates understand the importance of giving pro bono legal advice by focusing on those in need.
This article is also written to assist people who seek free legal advice, to understand the difficulties we, advocates, face, especially if they do not fall into the pro bono category. This article goes on to provide a solution on how best they then, can be assisted cost effectively.
Last year, I was honoured to be recognised in the Pro Bono Recognition List of 2024.
Throughout my practice, (like many other advocates), I have given uncountable hours to others of my own time without any charge. Having tried various models, I re-structured the way in which I did this repeatedly, which ultimately led me to being recognised on this list amongst many others, whom I would equally like to commend, especially those who have been recognised in this year’s list.
How did this honour of being recognised come about? Having considered the many factors, which I will expand upon below; I decided to go back to basics and help those who needed the help, as opposed to those who just wanted help for nothing (there is a distinction), stay with me, readers.
Quoted from the website.
‘The List recognises barristers and solicitors who gave 25 hours or more pro bono legal assistance over the last year………………Each has provided at least 25 hours of legal pro bono last year, with many offering substantially more than that. Those lawyers follow the long tradition of the legal profession in volunteering their time to provide free legal assistance to individuals and charities………Pro bono is not a substitute for legal aid, but it is a valuable part of our system of justice, working alongside the advice sector. The judiciary sees first-hand how pro bono advice and representation helps those who might not otherwise receive legal assistance. I hope that recognition on the List encourages the legal profession to continue its commitment to providing pro bono help to those in need.’
The Lady Chief Justice of England and Wales, The Baroness Carr of Walton-on-the-Hill
Culturally, I grew up in a Hindu Punjabi family, who always taught me the value of engaging in something called ‘Seva’. This is the Indian word for selfless service. By going to the Sikh and Hindu temple as a child, somewhere this seed was dropped into my mind, which my parents encouraged me to take forward.
During my college days at High Pavement Sixth Form College Nottingham & NCN (as they then were), I studied Law, Sociology, Business and Politics A Levels. Simultaneously, I became the Equal Opportunities Officer of the students’ union and began advising people on equality and diversity issues. Concurrently, my family members, friends and I set up a committee to host a variety of awareness and charitable projects from 1994-1999 in particular. I have written about this in Counsel magazine.
I then went on to read law at the University of Leicester with placements abroad and whenever I returned, I spent time with Manjula Sood MBE in Leicester, an inspiring and prominent politician who you can read more about here. She taught me the skill of handling sensitive matters compassionately for those in need, especially when matters were highly sensitive. We would often discuss the complexities involving issues of destitution; she took great pride in assisting the destitutes, passionately, especially in her surgeries. This led me to take on various committee roles within various wings of the university to assist projects and help other people.
I then started training as a Solicitor under Deanne Taylor and Martin Smalley who acted as significant role models, they taught me the skill of assisting clients and not ‘overcharging them’. I realised that the legal profession was misunderstood by many who thought lawyers charged expensive hourly rates for just talking. They taught me that building trust between the client and self was crucial from day one. It was here that I learned the importance of accurate time recording on files and transparency thereon. Furthermore, I particularly enjoyed their Saturday free advice clinic that was running at the time. It aimed to help those in need, who could not afford legal fees. This was a fabulous initiative which no other law firm offered locally, which attracted many people who struggled with a variety of legal issues. It saddened me to learn that so many law firms were focussed on billing targets and would not even speak to a potential client without asking for ‘payment on account’, when they just needed some basic guidance and had no money! It shocked me further to learn that some people were disappointed with the legal advice they had received having paid out hundreds if not thousands of pounds that they could barely afford in the first place. Consequently, it was great to see how these solicitors put something back into their community, which stuck with me and made me want to do more by way of pro bono work.
In the midst of this, I experienced personal litigation, where I faced this issue of over-billing. Ultimately after an extensive battle, I secured a reduction on a final bill paying only one third of what was being charged. I have written about this subject to help people which can be read here: Overbilling. I therefore realised how costs can be so concerning, and how important it is to help people who just need some guidance to get them on the right track.
I was then further fortunate to be trained under Usha Sood, one of the UK’s most prominent Indian female Barristers of Trent Chambers. Here, I learned the valuable lessons in providing cost effective direct access legal advice, a scheme which helps people pay less by directly going to a barrister as opposed to paying expensive hourly rates of solicitors.
Furthermore, I really enjoyed learning about the TCHR wing attached to the Chambers, whereby students would come in to learn from and observe Barristers working with clients, thus, supporting the ethos of pro bono work.
Together these golden nuggets of wisdom, have remained with me throughout my career, and I have tried to continue helping others as much as possible.
As I established my legal practice, my desire to assist people remained, therefore I introduced a free 30-minute chat for those in need. However, over time, the commitment I could give to others became increasingly limited, in the light of my personal, family and work commitments. Furthermore, walking with my chocolate labrador 3 times a day, became part of my self-care routine.
With my desire and time constraints, I reduced the 30-minute chat to 15 minutes per enquiry to allow more people to be helped. I must have dealt with hundreds of these calls and emails over the years.
Lawyers and doctors must be two of the only group of professionals, who are asked the classic question wherever they go which is always a variation of, ‘I just wanted to ask for your advice on xxx’. Consequently, I found myself embroiled in more and more legal problems of others, wherever I went. In fact, what I learned was, everyone has a legal problem and everyone wanted free advice, especially those who could afford paid legal service.
Concurrent to the 15/30-minute chats I gave to the public, I noticed the requests for this new wave of free advice hugely increased from many other people who started taking my free time in huge quantities.
Daily, I was getting texts, emails, calls, or WhatsApp messages from so many people which became completely unmanageable, not to mention challenging.
I then reflected on who this group of people were, which I managed to break down as follows.
From these requests, I would be asked to (including but not limited to).
The list is endless, and I could give many comical examples with stories. The best of these must be, when someone said to me, they had a ‘business proposal’, which transpired to be an attempt to seek free legal advice on a no win no fee basis. They expected me to do all the hard work and hope to get paid if they won in the end!
Another, classic comical story, was to do with a corner shop near my parents’ home, where I had visited to buy some chocolates. As I was making the payment, the owner informed me that he had applied to become an off licence and needed some legal advice from me. The most hilarious part of this exchange was, when he said, “If you advise me, I will sort you out with a couple of cans of larger.”
Need I say anymore! I thought to myself, I spent thousands of pounds to train to be a Barrister and look at what my reward is. It’s a good thing, I have a good sense of humour.
From being someone who used to love helping people passionately, I had become someone who started to detest giving free legal advice, and this made me ask myself why?
After careful consideration, the answers came to me as I scrolled through my records of all the people who I had helped.
I then conducted a self-analysis over a 3-month period (12 weeks). During that period, I observed I had 12 requests for free advice. This is on average one request a week.
If I had entertained these 12 requests, they would have taken at least 21 hours (1.5 hours minimum per person) to give them advice/guidance. Each request had a substantial set of issues and required a lot of input (which were initially claimed to be ‘quick issues’). From an experienced advocate’s perspective, this is how much time they would have taken in my estimation.
This would mean, at least 1.5 hours on one free issue alone. The problem would then be, some people would come back for more, so I could spend up to an average of 2.5 hours per person, which is the same amount of time I would spend in a paid consultation with a client.
Having done the maths, this would equate to a full working week for all 12 people, for free, which did not sit well with me, especially as a self-employed barrister.
Having analysed the above situation very carefully, I noticed there was a common theme between most of the people I had started to help; They all had money to spend BUT the truth was that they did not want to pay for legal advice.
In essence, it hit me that I was helping those who could afford to help themselves, but quite frankly were too parsimonious to pay for the advice. I would get professionals like doctors I know, business owners and many retired people with numerous rental properties without mortgages and few outgoings asking for free advice on matters for which they should pay.
It then dawned upon me, the people ‘pro bono’ work is set up for, were NOT these people and this had to stop, because I was being prevented from helping those who deserved the help.
Inadvertently, I had started to assist the wrong group of people.
A lot of people felt because they knew me, they were entitled to my free advice, at all hours of the day. I never for once felt, (because I knew these same people), that I would be entitled for example, to free stock from their shops, or medical consultations or services they offered in their daily work. I found this somewhat offensive. In the legal world, our service is our time which in business terms is called stock. I would never dream of walking into a business asking for free shopping for a month, so why was I entertaining these people, I asked myself.
Simultaneously, I noticed the complaint culture increased. - I recall situations where having gone the extra mile was fruitless. For example, I had a client who was in a bad place to whom, I offered a heavily discounted fee. Their final bill was 10% of what it would have been commercially. Instead of thanking me, they chose to complain to avoid paying the bill, which, in the end was written off as it was not worth pursuing.
Concurrently, I started to learn about the legal and insurance risks involved in giving free advice, especially if a client care letter was not in place. For example, the legal guidance as per cases like Burgess v Lejonvarn [2018] EWHC 3166 (TCC), and BPE Solicitors and Anor v Hughes-Holland (in substitution for Gabriel) [2017] UKSC 21 were helpful. Regardless of their outcomes, no lawyer wants to be embroiled in litigation, where they are being sued for ‘free advice’ they may have given or for comments they may have made outside of formal instructions, which, are construed as ‘advice.’ Moreover, the last thing you want is for your insurance not to cover you, when no client care relationship existed/exists. Therefore, the simple answer was to stop giving such free advice and start keeping a record of it. DTM, a law firm in Liverpool, have written one of the best articles on this subject which is found here.
Furthermore, I remember going to various training courses where we were told it would be prudent to document any form of free guidance with something along the lines of; ‘This is not formal legal advice and cannot and should not be relied upon formally’. Therefore, I made it noticeably clear whenever an enquiry was dealt with.
This, therefore, made me appreciate the risks and reevaluate how to move forward.
I did not appreciate the times I was approached. I found that people just wanted more and more for nothing. I would receive correspondence / calls / texts and even notes through my letterbox at all hours of the day, anytime of the week, saying (including but not limited to),
‘Can you just look at this’, or
‘I just have a quick question; can I speak to you for 5 minutes please?’ or
‘Can you just read this please and tell me what to do’. or
‘Can you write the response for me please’. or
‘Tell me what you think’.
It became awkward at many social functions, parties, and other places where people would come and sit with me and say, I just want to ‘pick your brains’ for some legal advice.
I also felt that the people I was helping had no regard for my time. In a 24-hour day, I must live, work, sleep, walk the dog, cook the dinner and complete many chores, in the middle of which these people want you to give them free advice, at random hours of the day or night when it suited them, with no desire to pay for it.
I found relationships became compromised, oftentimes leaving them in jeopardy. Offering someone help could open an assortment of problems. For example, starting to help someone, but not being able to see it through, also caused problems. Instead of being told, “thanks for helping me up to now,” I was told, “why did not you see it through?” with expressions of annoyance, not to mention rude behaviour.
People who contacted me seeking free advice would assume (because I am a lawyer), I will know everything about everything. I then learned to say no to the areas that are not within my specialism, or areas of law I used to cover which I am now out of date within terms of my legal knowledge. For example, I often get approached about immigration or landlord & tenancy matters, as many Indian people either want to bring a spouse or relative over from abroad or have rental properties with tenant issues. Both of which are no longer my specialty areas, so I decided to refer the enquires on to others specialised in those areas.
Thus, there came a point, where I had to decide on who was worthy of my help and who was not.
I decided, I would revert to basics by giving free advice to those who needed assistance and cannot afford it, as opposed to those who did not want to pay but could. It was very simple!
I then started to say no! and this felt good. This disappointed many people and continues to do so, but quite frankly, the whole purpose of pro bono work (which I once enjoyed so much), had to be restored to serve people in need, I decided.
It was better to disappoint others than to feel disappointed in myself later if problems emerged as I would only be saying ‘I wish I never helped them in the first place’.
This all helped me re-establish how much time I could give in the first instance.
Having looked into my timetable in line with my film work, case load and all other commitments, I worked out how much time I could give to pro bono work. Once I had done this, I decided to do 4 things.
If the person is in real need for legal advice, and unable to pay (being the key criteria with supporting evidence), then I would consider helping them within the set hours I have allocated for his type of work.
For those I could not assist once my time quota was up or outside of my specialism, I would refer them to various places such as:
FRU | Free Representation Unit (thefru.org.uk).
Advocate: Finding free legal help from barristers (weareadvocate.org.uk)
It has really helped me to divert some of my free enquiries to literature I have written on various subjects. If you go to my Lexology page, you will find a variety of articles, the most popular being the reduced fee conferences.
For those who fell somewhere in the middle including those who could pay, but within reason, I created a reduced fee conference package (RFCP) for 2.5 hours inclusive of 1 hour free which is my structured way of giving back. This way, I am able to give free advice, and clients can pay a more affordable overall rate by getting more in return. These have proven extremely popular and include.
The process is remarkably simple. Potential clients email my office and send in what is required to set up a conference.
I am thankful for being added to the pro bono list and being recognised for the free help given.
I urge my fellow advocates to pay attention what I had recognised, which is to give more to those who need assistance through pro bono work.
I hope this article helps advocates restructure their practice diverting them back to pro bono work and to help those who require our advice/guidance. I also hope, at the same time, it helps those seeking advice to understand which approach to take.
You can email me at haresh.sood@tbgbarrister.co.uk.