McCann FitzGerald believes that it is important as a law firm to assume social responsibility, by having a positive impact on the communities where we work through volunteering and supporting community initiatives; by supporting projects helping those most in need in Ireland and worldwide; by using our skills and expertise to promote access to justice for people in need and improve our laws and legal system, and by conducting our business in an environmentally responsible and sustainable manner.
Volunteering
Ireland and Irish people have a tradition of giving their time and skills to assist those with the greatest of needs.
Accordingly the firm contributes with the knowledge, skills and time of its people in supporting different projects and organisations. Examples include:
- Working with Junior Achievement Ireland in bringing volunteers into the classroom to teach enterprise skills to students at primary level, many in disadvantaged areas of the city, helping create a culture of enterprise among young people and giving them an insight into life in the workplace;
- Working with the Daughters of Charity Community Services to provide a team of visitors to senior citizens attending the Dominican Day Care Centre, Henrietta Street;
- As partners with NFTE (the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship, which works in strategic partnership with Foróige, the National Youth Development Organisation) at centres in Coolock and the North Inner City to provide business mentors for young people in post-primary education and who have dropped out of post-primary education to help build self confidence and interpersonal and business skills as a vehicle for employability, and to increase career and college aspirations and business knowledge.
Charity support
The firm supports the Soul of Haiti Foundation. The foundation was born out of a challenge set to the finalists in the Ernst & Young Irish Entrepreneur of the Year Award to exercise their strategic expertise to help improve selected communities in Haiti’s economic and social circumstances in a practical, sustainable manner. It now has 8 projects in the country. Agricultural business activity forms the nucleus of its initiative, but it is also involved in some humanitarian initiatives that can be implemented using the professional business and project management skills of its partners.
We run a number of charity days and special events during the year to support charities nominated by our own staff, which they have a special reason for supporting, often where one of our people is involved in voluntary work or fundraising for that charity or has a family member, friend or neighbour who has been helped by that charity.
Access to Justice
The firm's pro bono work is divided into involvement by individual lawyers with organisations that provide legal advice to the public, principally the Free Legal Advice Centres (FLAC), and provision by the firm of legal services on a pro bono basis, principally to charities and not-for-profit organisations in start up situations.
Our large number of FLAC volunteers staff a busy city centre legal advice clinic which provides legal advice and assistance to clients whose means make it difficult for them to secure professional legal advice.
We are also conscious of the need for experienced practitioners to contribute to work aimed at improving our laws and our justice system and enhancing legal professional life in Ireland. Many of our partners and solicitors are active in government and business-sponsored initiatives and groups working to improve our legal infrastructure, in law reform expert groups, in Law Society Committees and in other groups working to support the quality of the legal practitioner’s working experience.