Rod Jerke, QC and Susan Billington, QC present Bruce Churchill-Smith, QC of BLG with Pro Bono Project Award

The Child Advocacy Pro Bono Project was announced as the first brokered project of PBLA on October 30, 2007. Through a Memorandum of Understanding developed in conjunction with Children's Legal and Educational Resource Centre (CLERC) and Pro Bono Law Alberta, Borden Ladner Gervais LLP (BLG) will provide pro bono legal services in a range of civil law matters to vulnerable children and youth unable to access or pay for legal services in the Calgary and surrounding area. These services will be provided pursuant to BLG's "pro bono policy" which counts pro bono hours as "billable" hours.

The Child Advocacy Pro Bono Project targets participation by not only barristers at BLG but also provides opportunities for its solicitors. The scope of the project is quite broad and includes varying levels of volunteer involvement including:

• Representation of children and youth in general civil law matters and education (school) related matters but will not include family law and child protection matters
• Development of policies and operational procedures for CLERC
• Research and development of educational and resource materials on children's law
• Outreach presentations regarding children and the law to community and social service agencies

Bruce Churchill-Smith, partner and coordinator of the project at BLG, advises that as of mid-2008, 15 lawyers at BLG have formally signed up as participating volunteer lawyers in the Project and work on several cases has already begun.

CLERC has been operating and providing free (pro bono) service to vulnerable children and youth in the Calgary community for five years. CLERC currently has two lawyers on staff: Dale Hensley, the Executive Director; and Julie Hart, Lawyer for Children and Youth. "We are very excited that this arrangement with BLG and brokered by PBLA, will increase CLERC's capacity to help children in need of legal advice, service and education" says Ms. Hensley. For more information on CLERC, visit www.clerc-calgary.ca

Part of the mandate of PBLA is to broker pro bono projects between law firms and community groups. "We are very pleased that within our first several months of operations, PBLA has been able to fulfill this role" says Rod Jerke President of PBLA. For more information on law firm pro bono policies and project development, click here.
Click here for the news release on the Child Advocacy Pro Bono Project.