The ingenious scheme to make pro-bono work pay

In certain US states it is mandatory for lawyers to donate 15 or 20 hours of pro-bono work a year to help the poor. In Mississippi and California, a $500 (£300) fee will secure exemption.

The former attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, who works for an American firm in London, is not proposing such a drastic course of action to compensate for successive cuts to provision of legal aid in the UK.

But he is an enthusiastic advocate of an ingenious scheme that is spreading awareness through the profession of the potential for pro-bono work to redouble its impact in helping those deserving of legal support.

The Access to Justice Foundation, of which Lord Goldsmith was a founding member and is now chair, has so far raised £130,000 from court orders in which the losing side has been required to pay pro-bono lawyers' notional costs.

The power for a court to award such payments was introduced under section 194 of the Legal Services Act 2007. The problem has been that too few lawyers who have given their time for free are aware that they can nonetheless seek a costs order from a judge. The cash raised goes to the foundation, which distributes it to law centres and charities providing legal assistance to those in need.

"We have always said that pro-bono work is lawyers working for free not that it's a substitute for a properly funded legal aid system," Goldsmith says. "[But] people are increasingly turning to pro-bono assistance because they can't get legal aid. So it's tremendous lawyers are prepared to help.

"Lawyers are not aware of the scheme enough. We need to raise awareness among judges and practitioners. We had one court order of £40,000. Judges can help. If all judges at the end of a case checked whether it was pro-bono and whether there should be a cost order, it would be a huge boost.

"We have given out small grants and helped train case workers. Law centres have been really badly hit because they are funded by local authorities as well as central government."

Some solicitors' firms and barristers chambers have been worried about "the bottom line" and objected to junior members doing pro-bono work, Lord Goldsmith said. American firms have a better record of encouraging voluntary help.

Another moneyraising scheme developed by the Access to Justice Foundation involves persuading firms to donate money lodged in company accounts that belongs to clients who can no longer be traced.

"We have launched the 'Peanuts' campaign, begging for small sums and asking them to give it to us. It may be peanuts for them, but it all adds up."

On general cuts in legal aid, the former attorney general treads a fine line: "There's been a tightening of legal aid over the years, and the government of which I was a part did that too. The grave concern is that if you recognise you need to make economies you need to make sure that they are not forced on to the areas of greatest need. "

Family law has been particularly badly hit by the cuts, he believes. "It hugely desirable that people need professional help. There's a strong tradition of British lawyers giving generously, too.

"In some US states there's a professional rule that [lawyers] have to give a certain amount of their time. And in some US states there's no legal aid at all."