London Legal walk raises £310k for advice centres
More than 3,500 lawyers turned out at the Royal Courts of Justice yesterday for the fourth annual London Legal Support Trust sponsored walk.
More than 3,500 lawyers turned out at the Royal Courts of Justice (RCJ) yesterday for the fourth annual London Legal Support Trust sponsored walk.
Raising a record £310,000, the event saw 196 legal teams from across the UK set off on a 10km route from the RCJ over the Millenium Bridge, through Westminster and St James’s Park before finishing at The Law Society’s headquarters at Chancery Lane.
“It was brilliant, we raised £100,000 more than the year before,” said walk organiser Bob Nightingale.
“Having doubled the number of walkers every year for four years, I think it’s becoming something of an institution. People know that the voluntary legal sector is dying and the commercial legal profession is turning to help.”
Following the walk, a ceremony at The Law Society saw the Trust present cheques to the Mary Ward Legal Centre (£27,000), which provides free advice on debt law, and the Islington Law Centre (£25,000), which provides advice on housing, education employment and consumer law, to combat the “immediate danger” of closure that both centres face.
The Trust was also given a boost by the announcement that Weil Gotshal & Manges will be joining a scheme that raises money from the interest accrued by pooling the firms’ client accounts.
Previously Allen & Overy was the only firm to take part in the idea, raising £75,000 a year through the scheme.
“The need is immense – the gap between what legal aid achieves and what is needed is huge, so regular money is important. But the walk was a brilliant demonstration of support by the commercial sector,” Nightingale said.
Elsewhere, the legal teams at Vodafone and the Surrey Law Society held their own walks, turning the sponsored walk into a national event.
The Trust will allocate the remaining funds raises in coming months, and welcomes applications from other law centres in the southeast for funding.
View results 10 per page | 20 per page
Readers' comments (14)
Anonymous | 20-May-2008 3:29 pm
Sponsorship
Great news that money has been raised for the legal services for the poor that the oh-so-Socialist Labour party has decided it will no longer fund via the tax-payer. However am I only one that hates being asked for sponsorship for really easy and/or fun things?
When I was younger Scouts used to knock on my door asking for sponsorship for doing useful things like sweeping up leaves or litter or washing cars.
Instead, people now ask you to give your money to charity so that they can do things that they want to do themselves, and that are generally of no value to the person asked to sponsor them. It might still be for charidee, but it's you that is contributing, not the person being sponsored as it was with the Scouts.
And at risk of sounding cynical about this event, at least running a marathon is actually difficult. Walking 10km by contrast is - almost literally - a walk in the park.
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
A. Hero | 20-May-2008 3:38 pm
Sponsorship needed
This weekend I will be doing a sponsored lager-drink and telly-watch for charity. Please sponsor me.
In order to qualify for a place on the event, my wife says I have to raise £2000 for breast cancer awareness. (Also, pick up the kids from football practice/wash car/mow bloody lawn).
Please give generously.
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
B. Ludicheek | 20-May-2008 3:47 pm
It gets worse!
Further to the last poster, I was recently called by my student Godson and asked to contribute towards a sponsored walk HE was doing... in China!
In order to qualify he had to raise £3,500 or more for a charity I won't name here.
Assuming that at least half of that will have gone on getting the young man to the Great Wall then feeding him for two weeks, I am in effect being asked to sponsor him to go on holiday, then to contribute the same amount again to fund the holiday itself.
At least if I sponsored the poster below all the money would actually go to cancer awareness - he wouldn't also ask me to pay his beer and electricity bills...
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
Not the AG | 20-May-2008 4:03 pm
Why walk?
Apparently the Attorney General was one of the walkers yesterday. So, a member of the New Labour goverment walking to raise money for legal advice charities whose funding has been cut by uhhh,...the New Labour government. Marvellous stuff.
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
Anonymous | 20-May-2008 4:11 pm
Funny...
...how us corporate lawyers and other 'evil Tories' are having to bail out the legal advice centres for the poor that the party of the working man is no longer willing to fund.
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
City Lawyer | 20-May-2008 5:24 pm
Re Sponsorship (to Anonymous)
Some of us did run it mate - put a sock in it.
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
Anonymous | 20-May-2008 5:31 pm
Wow!
You ran 10k? Why, that's almost seven miles!
Much better for all of us if you'd picked up some rubbish, painted over graffiti or cleaned a few car to raise your sponsorship. But that wouldn't be as much fun.
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
Ernest Bevin | 20-May-2008 6:06 pm
The right spirit, but taxes should pay
It's great that this was organised and hats off to all involved. But legal aid centres shouldn't be paid for by sporadic acts of charity from corporate lawyers and their sponsors - they should be paid for with legal aid tax pounds like they always were in the past.
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
Anonymous | 20-May-2008 8:36 pm
Why walk, sponsorship & funny
Well they have to find a way to get rid of some weight after excessive beer lunches while they pick the pockets of a friend or two ...
And to one Anonymous from another, I am sufficiently old in the tooth to remember when the Tories were in power and what they were doing to legal aid under the auspices of that dear lady Maggie Thatcher. Suspect it's a case of the pot calling the kettle black dont you think?
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
Anonymous the first | 21-May-2008 10:08 am
Legal aid
Thatcher's legal aid cutbacks can't have been worse than New Labour's, otherwise New Labour wouldn't have had anything to cut back.
Tories are (traditionally) less concerned with financial equality in society than Labourites, but they've always been fairly strong on the importance of access to justice for even the very poor.
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment