An event was held on 19 April by the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Pro Bono to launch Mind the gap: an assessment of unmet legal need in London (Hogan Lovells/APPG on Pro Bono; see page 7 of this issue), a report on MPs’ advice surgeries.

Speaking at the meeting, the chair of the APPG, barrister and Conservative MP for Cheltenham Alex Chalk, said that unfortunately MPs take ‘access to justice for granted’. He paid tribute to the ‘brilliant work’ the legal profession does, but acknowledged that ‘pro bono must be seen as an adjunct to, not a substitute for, a properly funded legal aid system’.

Lord Andrew Phillips, in comments at the meeting, which was held in the House of Commons, said lawyers should have a ‘public commitment to serve justice as well as their pockets’. Phillips, who was one of the founders of LAG and a Liberal Democrat peer, lamented that, when he started in practice over 50 years ago, ’95 per cent or more of solicitors had a commitment to serve a community’. He suggested that lawyers should take an oath of office to ‘advance justice’ so that they could ‘recover their sense of justice’.

Yasmin Waljee, international pro bono director at Hogan Lovells, which conducted the research as part of its pro bono work, said 89 per cent of the problems they observed MPs trying to help with were legal ones. ‘MPs and their caseworkers are becoming the legal equivalent of accident and emergency departments,’ she explained. Waljee hopes the ‘review of legal aid will continue whatever the outcome of the election’, as pro bono cannot replace the specialist help that has been lost.