IN THE COMMUNITY
Lovells' employees abseil down Atlantic House to raise money for ParalympicsGB
Touch 2008
Lovells’ Touch is a global fundraising initiative involving as many of our international offices as possible. It started with over 1,100 members of Lovells throughout the world participating in the vote on the UN Millennium Development Goals which helped us to decide to focus our Lovells Touch 2006 fundraising efforts on the alleviation of child poverty. We raised over £130,000 globally, with over £30,000 going to our nominated international charity, Save the Children International, while the rest of the funds went to regional charities. Touch 2007 focused on charities that deal with the issue of access to water.
For Touch 2008/9 the firm voted to support charities dealing with disability, and more specifically for our international charity, the issue of preventable blindness. ORBIS was chosen as our international charity of the year.
ORBIS concentrates on childhood blindness in the world's rural communities. It is particularly well known for the Flying Eye Hospital, a DC-10 which has been converted to include an operating theatre and training auditorium. This enables leading eye consultants to undertake operations with local doctors so they can learn new methods in eye care.
ParalympicsGB
Lovell’s UK charity of the year is ParalympicsGB. Dame Tani Grey-Thompson OBE launched the fundraising year in the London office in May 2008 and set the challenge to raise £100,000 for Paralympic sport.
The history of the Paralympics dates back to 1948. Neurologist Dr Ludwig Guttmann had been using sport in the rehabilitation of spinal cord injured WWII veterans and decided to set up a competition between sports clubs and hospitals to coincide with the 1948 Olympic Games held in London. The Summer and Winter Paralympic Games have subsequently grown into the ultimate international competition for world class athletes with a disability.
Lovells’ staff will all be involved in various different fundraising events, including an abseil from the top of the London building, a talent competition and a games night.
Further information can be found on the fundraising website - www.lovells.com/paramlympics
Lovell’s Pro Bono
Lovells has an award-winning pro bono practice, which is committed to providing free legal advice to charities, tackling the disadvantaged, who are unable to afford legal advice. As the first firm in the City to establish a full-time pro bono unit in 1997, we have been delivering over 18,000 hours of free legal advice annually to 200 not-for-profit organisations.
Young Lawyers Awards
Heather Gagen, Katalina Chin, Shrina Shah and Edward Mathison
We are pleased to announce that four of our trainees, Heather Gagen, Katalina Chin (on secondment from ITV), Shrina Shah and Edward Mathison won the Team Award at the Young Lawyers Awards 2007. The team assisted three visually impaired entrepreneurs, supported by Action for Blind People, to each set up their own business. During this process each trainee carried day to day responsibility for their client throughout this lengthy and complicated project. The trainees' hard work contributed to the empowerment of their clients, who are now operating their own privately owned social enterprises.
The awards are organised by the Junior Lawyers Division of the Law Society and the team was presented during Pro Bono Week by Lord Phillips of Sudbury.