Spotlight on Community Impact
2028 Ambitions
Sustaining our impact
Our Community Impact programme is a crucial element of our Firm’s culture, reflecting our values and supporting our goals to attract, retain and develop our people, while enabling us to make a meaningful and measurable contribution to the communities we serve.
Through initiatives such as supporting people who are unable to access legal aid, working with charity partners to bolster organisational skills, and creating pathways for young people via our Career Start programme, we are expanding access to justice, access to opportunity and driving meaningful social change.
Over the past three years, our programme has grown significantly, driven by increases in pro bono hours and participation in community investment activities across our Firm, enhancing the support we have been able to provide to our charity partners and individuals.
A key catalyst has been the change in how we recognise pro bono work within the business: it is treated as equivalent to chargeable work for all lawyers. In addition, our introduction of a KPI measuring average pro bono hours per UK lawyer has supported greater engagement and participation across our Firm.
While engagement has grown substantially during this period, our focus is now on broadening and deepening participation, ensuring we have opportunities for all our lawyers and talented professionals to contribute to and strengthen our impact.
Looking ahead, we will support our international offices in their efforts to expand their community impact activities. Investment in technology will help underpin this work, allowing us to scale the programme more effectively, enhance the experience of those participating and extend its reach.
Our Community Impact programme in numbers - 2024/2025
Community investment
Community investment volunteers
Community Investment (non-legal) volunteer hours
contributed by the Charles Russell Speechlys Foundation to non-profit partners
of our people in the UK giving their time to Community Investment activities
Community Investment Impact
key charity partners of the Charles Russell Speechlys Foundation provided with capacity building professional skills support including:
- Data support
- Marketing strategy support
- Mentoring and coaching
- CRS Business School - Effective leadership workshop
- Health and Safety guidance
- Social media support
- Microsoft IT training
- Corporate Strategy development support
young people provided with mentoring
young people completed work experience
of students on our outreach programme saw an improvement in their Communication & Interview skills
young people attended in person insight days
Pro Bono
pro bono hours
lawyers
average hours per fee earner
of UK fee-earners participating in pro bono work
Pro Bono Impact
organisations provided with pro bono legal advice, on areas including:
- Charities
- Commercial
- Construction
- Corporate
- Data Protection
- Dispute Resolution
- Employment
- Family
- Immigration
- Intellectual Property
- Private Property
- Real Estate
- Tax
- Wills and Probate
individuals supported with pro bono legal advice through:
- Family, employment and social housing law legal advice clinics
- Windrush Legal Initiative
- Kids In Need of Defence
- The European Lawyers in Lesvos project
- Disability Benefits Appeals
- Ad hoc casework
Strategic support for charities
Throughout 2025, we delivered a comprehensive programme of strategic support for the Charles Russell Speechlys Foundation charity partners, including a legal education series of webinars on a range of specialist legal topics and a programme of business services masterclasses.
The legal education series provides our Foundation charity partners with information on topics that are relevant to their organisations, and 2025 sessions covered charity law, employment law and commercial contracts.
The online masterclasses delivered by our Business Services teams (including IT, HR, Marketing, and Project Management) aim to help charities build their operational capacity and effectiveness, especially in areas where they may have limited in-house resources. In 2025, topics covered included Digital Marketing and SEO, Project Management, Health and Safety, and Artificial Intelligence. We look to build and expand on this work in 2026, covering further topics of interest.
We also capitalised on our business services professionals’ expertise to support our charities and individuals through coaching and mentoring, for example through our Business School, via Career Start, our five-year programme for young people, and through our COO Lesley O’Leary who mentored Jo Gordon, who was, until recently, COO at our charity partner, SafeLives.
My sessions with Lesley have given me confidence and clarity in my first ever role as a COO. In the sessions, we talk over issues I am having, and Lesley has been incredibly generous about sharing ideas that she has had and things she has developed. I am very grateful to Charles Russell Speechlys and to Lesley for their support.”
Jo Gordon, former COO, SafeLives
I really enjoyed the different approaches and explanations which we can tailor to our own organisation. We will build on existing measures around risk and accountability.”
Project Management Masterclass participant, working at Food Bank Aid
The power of collaboration
Our partnerships with clients and intermediaries across all strategic focus areas strengthen and extend our collective impact.
Five years of the Windrush Legal initiative
Last year marked five years of the Windrush Legal Initiative, a collaborative pro bono partnership that brings together legal and financial experts to support Windrush claimants.
Our Firm is working alongside the Greater Manchester Immigration Aid Unit and seven other firms to fill a critical gap in the UK Government Windrush Compensation Scheme, which provides no funded legal assistance despite its complexity.
Since 2023, Grant Thornton has been providing expert forensic accountancy guidance on a pilot case and in February 2024, we expanded Grant Thornton’s role, with the organisation now assisting a team from another firm in the collaboration.
In 2025, Nova Wealth joined the initiative to provide financial advice and guidance to certain clients who have been successful in securing financial compensation under the Government scheme. This includes help with budgeting, saving, and making informed financial decisions about the future.
One of our Windrush clients originally from Spain, had lived in the UK for over 30 years after marrying an English woman in 1980s and being granted indefinite leave to remain. However, after attending his brother’s funeral in Spain in 2021, he was detained at the airport on his return to the UK. The family subsequently submitted a claim for compensation, but this was rejected in 2023, and they sought advice from Nicola Burgess, Supervising Solicitor at Greater Manchester Immigration Aid Unit and Charles Russell Speechlys. In 2025, the Home Office accepted responsibility for the wrongful detention and made an offer of compensation.
At the end of 2025, the Windrush Legal Initiative secured
compensation offers
total compensation for clients
number of lawyers involved
pro bono hours
cases
For the first time in two years, I felt understood and somebody was trying to help me through everything. It feels like a massive weight has been lifted from my shoulders… I’m very grateful. It's been a really tough four years trying to battle through this. We didn't think that day would come and we wouldn't have got here without that legal support. We're extremely grateful to Nicola Burgess and the legal team at Charles Russell Speechlys who got us to this stage."
Our client’s daughter
The initiative provides vital access to justice for those who have experienced decades of disbelief. An inability to prove lawful status denies a person their rights and prevents access to key services we take for granted. The human impact of this is immeasurable. Working with our teams of lawyers they at last feel supported and listened to. Helping to establish the initiative, build and nurture partnerships across the collaboration, and secure life-changing sums of money for Windrush survivors harmed by the State will always remain one of the proudest moments of my career.”
Nicola Burgess, Supervising Solicitor at Greater Manchester Immigration Aid Unit
The Howard de Walden Estate: Shaping places and futures
In summer 2025, we partnered with, The Howard de Walden Estate, one of our longest-standing clients, to deliver a project during Career Start work experience week.
Our Career Start programme aims to broaden access to the legal profession and promote social mobility.
20 students spent a week working on a real-world case study developed by The Howard de Walden Estate and our Real Estate Disputes team, based on live challenges within London’s Marylebone Village and Portland Place.
The programme began with a site visit, giving participants first-hand insight into the area and its regeneration ambitions, where they learnt how to shape public space by adding vibrancy and community engagement.
Following a brief from our lawyers and the client, students worked in teams to develop innovative proposals, which they presented at the end of the week to The Howard de Walden Estate team. The quality of the ideas, analysis and presentations was high, providing fresh perspectives and practical suggestions for the client.
We thoroughly enjoyed working with this cohort of Career Start students, and their ideas, presentation skills and enthusiasm were infectious and very impressive.” We are extremely grateful to The Howard de Walden Estate for supporting this project and giving the students a tour of their estate which really helped to bring this case study to life."
We were impressed by the dedication and creativity the young people showed in the task we set. It was clear they had worked hard and given it a lot of thought. It has been a pleasure to be involved in this inspiring programme."
Ashley Nixon, Community Investment Manager, The Howard de Walden Estate
2026/27 Responsible Business Community Impact goals include:
- Increasing and broadening participation in our Community Impact programme, achieving 45% participation in the UK in 26/27.
- Increasing opportunities to deepen client and intermediary relationships through collaboration on Community Impact initiatives.
- Piloting and rolling out a new Community Impact management platform to improve efficiency, streamline processes, enhance accuracy of our data and increase engagement.
- Engaging with a pilot group of international offices to support them to develop their Community Impact initiatives.
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