The partnerships aim to make pro bono efforts sustainable and beneficial for Ontario solicitors
Since launching its online pro bono portal in May, the Ontario Bar Association has expanded the range of pro bono opportunities available to lawyers through its platform by brokering partnerships to support municipal economic development initiatives, aid women aiming to transition back into society after incarceration, and more.
The new developments aim to give solicitors more opportunities to give back and make pro bono efforts more sustainable for lawyers and law firms. Both are in the spirit of the OBA’s overarching goal for the portal: to reduce the friction involved in matching lawyers with pro bono gigs they’re interested in.
Finding pro bono opportunities in Ontario can be “like shopping before Amazon,” when consumers had to “go to a store to find something to buy,” says Louis Frapporti, a partner at Gowling WLG who has been working with the OBA to expand the portal’s offerings.
Frapporti references Amazon’s ability to bring products to the attention of consumers instantaneously. “The same principles we hope will apply in the pro bono space,” he says. “The pace of digital connectivity [is such that] I could be a lawyer in Windsor wanting to support some unique opportunity in the city of Toronto that I would never in 100 years have ever come across, but would have seen as a consequence of its placement on the portal.”
OBA President Katy Commisso agrees. “What we’re really hoping to do is to take the work out of finding opportunities for doing pro bono work so that lawyers can focus on the work itself,” she says.
Launched in collaboration with pro bono management platform Paladin, the OBA’s pro bono portal is free to all lawyers and law firms in Ontario. While Commisso says responses to the portal have been positive so far, the OBA has been seeking ways to enhance engagement further.
To that end, Frapporti has been focusing on ways to funnel pro bono efforts beyond advocacy or litigation, which he says represent the majority of pro bono work in the province. The OBA has brokered several partnerships that give more opportunities to lawyers who “focus on the commercial solicitor side of the practice, not the barrister side of the practice,” Frapporti says.
These include a collaboration with McMaster’s Degroote School of Business to provide legal and advisory services to incarcerated women looking to transition back into society, as well as a partnership with the City of Hamilton’s economic development department to provide business-related legal services throughout the region. The latter is a pilot project that could expand to other municipalities in Ontario; Frapporti says the OBA is currently in talks with the City of Toronto about launching a similar program to support the city’s small businesses, though nothing has been finalized to date.
The OBA has also partnered with Goodwill Industries to provide legal services to Goodwill’s clients and designated beneficiaries, supporting their integration into the community and pursuit of economic opportunities.
For Frapporti, focusing on opportunities for solicitors taps into “a largely un- or underexploited incentive structure in the pro bono sector.” While advocacy-driven pro bono efforts rarely involve repeat clients, pro bono opportunities for solicitors can give them the chance to do good while simultaneously “developing client opportunities as a business-related pro bono beneficiary grows into a ‘low bono’ and then a paying client,” Frapporti says.
“There are a host of skills that are embedded in this journey, which makes this effort more sustainable for lawyers and firms who can then better rationalize commitment to pro bono as also having a clear business outcome,” Frapporti adds.
The lawyer says he is also looking to recruit corporations with in-house legal departments into the OBA’s pro bono program, so that external counsel can support their social responsibility and charity programs.
“One of the many mechanisms I think which will deepen engagement and interest on the part of lawyers of all ages really is the opportunity to do more than one thing at once,” Frapporti says.
“If there are opportunities to deepen a relationship with a client – particularly a larger client that has in-house counsel or a large internal legal team – you’re activating the interests of lawyers and law firms on top of their desire to do good or to volunteer their time.”
“From the OBA's perspective more broadly, we know lawyers want to give back and they already do give back,” Commisso says, noting that the OBA is currently partnering with Pro Bono Ontario to encourage members across the province to participate in a regional pro bono hotline challenge, which involves delivering free legal advice to low-income Ontarians.
“Lou’s examples about pro bono services to help an entrepreneur get their business up and running is kind of a new lens on how lawyers can engage in pro bono work,” she adds. “But certainly the portal is where we're hoping will still provide opportunities for litigation support.”
