i-Probono
Pro bono legal assistance NGO iProbono won a Delhi high court appeal yesterday for a now six-year-old rape victim, with the high court slamming the magistrate and trial judge in her case for questioning her like an adult witness while recording her testimony.
A project aims to build a network of lawyers interested in fighting so-called SLAPP suits against activists and publishers, and to lobby for changes in freedom of speech laws.
Pro bono appetites growing.
Shireen Irani – executive director of online network for pro bono legal assistance i-Probono , tells the Hindu that the “push for volunteering” at the Indian legal workplace in the last three years has evened out the number of male and female lawyers registering on her website, to volunteer.
The site is free to use for people posting pro bono work and lawyers offering help, and requires lawyers to register with basic information including areas of expertise and speaking language.
Apart from acting as a bridge where people in need and lawyers offering pro bono assistance liaise on their own terms, i-Probono also assists the International Justice Mission with finding lawyers to conduct sessions on sensitising legal professionals to women victims of sex trafficking, oppression and slavery. [The Hindu Businessline]
If you didn’t know the exact address of the office, you’d be certain to miss it in the busy North Mumbai suburb. There are no signs and Michelle Mendonca’s business card, as legal director of the International Justice Mission (IJM), merely lists a PO box.
The only giveaway that you are at the correct place is a security keypad locking an unmarked door inside the building.
Eleven law firms, including six of India’s largest, Ashoka and the UK’s former attorney general Lord Peter Goldsmith QC have discussed how to develop a pro bono culture in Indian law firms as i-Probono, a UK not-for-profit and online portal seeking to connect lawyers to social sector projects, will launch in India to encourage law firms to do that which is “long overdue”.