Justice Connect's Pro Bono Portal

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Globally, over 5 billion people have a legal problem each year. 1.5 billion people cannot access justice, and 253 million people experience extreme conditions of injustice.

We use our Pro Bono Portal to harvest the significant capacity of the private legal profession to bridge the justice gap.

As the scale of unmet legal need increases, public interest legal issues arise with continued frequency, and firms become more technologically sophisticated, the time came to rethink our clearinghouse operations.

Starting by conducting research with our 50 member firms and our staff, we designed a technology-driven system to match unmet legal need with the capacity in our network of 10,000 pro bono lawyers.

We launched our portal in a pilot with 14 Australian firms in March 2019. After a three-month pilot and iteration period, we onboarded a second tranche of firms, and there are now 160 law firms using the Portal across Australia. In the year after the full launch of the Pro Bono Portal, Justice Connect’s referrals to firms increased by 50%.

Over 2,800 people and community organisations have been connected to pro bono legal assistance since the Pro Bono Portal’s launch in 2019, with and estimated contribution of 73,000 pro bono hours via the platform to date.

Global Pro Bono Portal

Bringing our Pro Bono Portal to jurisdictions around the world

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A cornerstone tool in the legal sector’s disaster response

Since January 2020, the Pro Bono Portal has played a central role in the Australian legal sector’s response to disasters like bushfires, floods, and COVID-19. Justice Connect made the Pro Bono Portal available to support a broad cross-sector response. This involved permitting non-member firms to use the Pro Bono Portal for the purposes of accepting referrals of matters related to disasters.

Latest features we’ve added:

We have added major new features to the Pro Bono Portal since its launch, in particular:

A client and referrer-facing intake form that feeds directly into the portal, creating an end-to-end system.
More sophisticated in-platform analytics.
Enabling multiple legal organisations to simultaneously post opportunities and match then with firms on the one Portal instance.

Testimonials from our firms

What firms are saying about our Portal

“We strongly support this thoughtful, design-led approach to harnessing technology so that we can better match unmet legal need with pro bono resources.”

“It has been really good to see what else is available at Justice Connect on the Opportunity Board. This is helpful for when there is a group at the firm that wants to do more work – I can proactively look.”

What firms have said about participating in our pilot

“The Portal Pilot is one of the best IT pilot programs I have ever seen. The smoothness of the pilot is fantastic. Even if you make no further changes it would still be great.”

“It has been good to be involved. It hasn’t felt too much like a pilot. It’s seemed to work pretty well from the beginning… it’s fit for purpose.”

“We’ve really valued the opportunity to participate in the pilot of Justice Connect’s portal. We’ve been able to help shape the portal so that it really meets our needs”