Engaging Students Globally in Pro Bono Service

Going from strength to strength…

Building on our work in developing the level of student engagement and increasing the number of active Student Divisions, Lawyers Without Borders’ annual student event – the Rule of Law Innovation Challenge (ROLIC) – has grown emphatically as well. In this the 4th year of the now annual event, ten teams from various Student Divisions took part and the numbers of attendees more than doubled.

On 16^th February 2018, the ROLIC was once again hosted by Kings College London at the Dickson Poon School of Law, Somerset House. Teams from seven student divisions - Bristol University, Queen Mary University of London, Leicester University, London School of Economics, Kings College, City University and the School of Oriental and African Studies, attended and put forward their unique approaches to meet different aspects of LWOB’s programming needs the wildlife crime and human trafficking arenas. This year’s winning entry consisted of a children’s encyclopaedia of wildlife crime addressing the need for youth oriented material for wildlife crime programming.   Like last year’s entry the prototype was complete and very professionally produced.

The innovative ideas that the teams came up with included the distribution of themed ‘kangas’, which are items of clothing specific to Tanzania, the development of a social media campaign about human trafficking that involved an expressive dance routine, or ‘ngoma’, and a card game to raise awareness about wildlife trafficking. The calibre of all the entries was impressive, both as to content and performance, presenting a challenge for the judges. The efforts put into the entries and the overall enthusiasm of students was inspiring and the students’ work product demonstrated extraordinary commitment to pro bono. The fact that the number of attendees doubled from the previous year, from under 30 entrants in 2017 to 60 this year, reflects the growing appetite among students for globally oriented pro bono.

The success of this event reflects, in part, the impact that LWOB UK is having in promoting pro bono in universities. A number of the entrants also received coaching with their projects from law firms partnered with LWOB, which was a great experience for them as students and prospective lawyers.

We look forward to strengthening student involvement in LWOB’s project focused on collaborative pro bono among and between students and lawyers, currently being led by our colleagues in the United Kingdom.