Corporate Social Responsibility

We believe that we have an important role to play in the communities where we live and work. We therefore make the expertise and knowledge of our team available to various local community groups, religious organisations, local citizen advice centres and student organisations. We, for example, organise talks on immigration issues for members of these groups within the community, with a view to educating them about their rights and hoping to empower them to get the justice they deserve. We also help some of these organisations train their front line staff on immigration and asylum on a pro bono basis.

We further work with local MPs on immigration issues and we encourage our staff to get involved in their own community through volunteering work.

These community and volunteering activities allow us to promote access to justice for and support to vulnerable groups and individuals, further strengthening our aim to be recognised as champions of justice, fairness and equality.

We value diversity and equality in the world around us and, as such, we highly value these qualities within our own organisation. Our policy to provide equal opportunity for all, regardless of their background or circumstances, has resulted in a diverse working environment with team members from many different backgrounds, ethnically and socially, and who, between them, speak over 30 different languages.

Our commitment to gender diversity is illustrated by the fact that the gender balance in our organisation is excellent at all levels, including the most senior and influential levels.

We also aim to ensure that everyone in the firm feels supported and valued, and actively encourage an attitude of co-operation and openness.

We place great importance on environmental protection and are therefore committed to limiting our impact on the environment. Measures to reduce our carbon footprint form a key part of this commitment. They include:

– Our policy to receive instructions from clients by email, phone or over Skype rather than at a face-to-face meeting when clients are not located within easy reach of one of our offices;
– Our strategy to encourage staff to use public transport to travel to meetings outside the office; and
– Our working from home scheme that we have developed for our staff.

These measures significantly reduce the transport needs of both clients and staff, respectively, and therefore contribute to the reduction of CO2 emissions.

In addition, we are continuously looking for ways to improve the energy efficiency of our offices. We have, for example, installed energy efficient office equipment in all of our locations. We also try to use resources efficiently and effectively; for example, we hope to convert all office paper to 100% recycled paper within the next year, and encourage clients not to print out our emails and documentation unless absolutely necessary.