US firms join high-profile supporters of struggling legal advice centre

The oldest free legal advice centre in the world has been boosted by prestigious US firms Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton and Goodwin Proctor joining its already illustrious list of supporting firms.

The two firms’ generosity is most welcome to The Toynbee Free Legal Advice Centre in Tower Hamlets, which as Lawyer 2B reports, has seen a 92% increase in demand for free legal advice following the government’s cuts to legal aid. The legal advice centre has been forced to cut back its own services due to financial constraints, but the injection of funding from the two US firms will enable a women-only Saturday clinic to run twice instead of once a month and for the centre’s deficit to be reduced while essential services are maintained.

Ashurst, Allen & Overy and Shakespeare Martineau are the Toynbee centre’s other three supporters from the very different world of high-end commercial law. All five firms’ pro bono activities will be good news to the justice secretary, Michael Gove, who has called for wealthy firms to fill the gap left by the legal aid cuts. However, the facts remain that full-time commercial lawyers lacking expertise in family and housing law, however generous they are in giving up their time to work for free, will never be able to fill the gaping chasm left by the legal aid cuts, which claimed more victims recently when it was revealed that a couple wrongfully accused of child abuse have likely lost their child forever to adoption as a result of legal aid being refused to them.