Winner — Investing in the Future Corporate Award and Corporate Employee Community Involvement Programme: Deneys Reitz
In the real world justice is mainly for the wealthy. Do you have a spare R1 000 an hour for lawyer’s fees? This is not even what the top firms charge their corporate clients.
And what of the lawyers themselves? They might have entered the profession dreaming of striving for justice and defending the innocent, but end up stuck in plush corporate offices helping the rich get richer.
For this reason public interest law is important. It helps the disadvantaged and it reunites lawyers with real justice and the greater good. That is why you will find lawyers from corporate law firm Deneys Reitz in the less-than-plush head office of the Guide Dog Association and learning, between the legal issues at hand, that French poodles make excellent guide dogs because of their intelligence.
You will find them at the Investec and City of Johannesburg-sponsored, The Business Place, in Kliptown, Soweto, which mentors entrepreneurs.
Taryn Hirsch, director of the Deneys Reitz public interest law department, and some colleagues are running a workshop on setting up a close corporation. Conference delegates have been drawn from the information, construction, retail, cleaning and security small-business sectors.
“Small businesses can be vulnerable and need to know their legal rights,” says Hirsch. Besides workshops, Hirsch and the team also do one-on-one consultations to help people with legal problems.
“The Business Place is a fantastic facility for small entrepreneurs. For just R10 to R100, people can attend workshops on anything from marketing to financial management.”
Empowering budding entrepreneurs one day, helping the South African Breastmilk Reserve with legal documents the next. It’s all in a week’s work.
“This milk can be given to indigent HIV-positive mothers in rural areas who do not have the money to buy formula milk,” Hirsch says.
Not all the work is intellectual or even legal. In Cape Town Deneys Reitz lawyers swapped their suits for old clothes and painted the Rape Crisis Centre. Deneys Reitz Durban raised money for the Children in Distress Foundation, which works with children affected by HIV. As part of Women’s Day last year Deneys Reitz supported Thembalethu Life Skills Centre in Johannesburg, which is a care facility for street girls in Johannesburg offering vocational training. The staff collected second-hand clothes and money for the centre.
“As a firm, from senior partners to messengers, we are constantly looking for ways to give back to our communities,” says Hirsch. “We recognise that while South Africa’s Constitution is arguably the most progressive in the world, many opeople still struggle for basic human rights, including access to justice.”
In 2004 Deneys Reitz established a pro bono committee to facilitate more social intervention by professionals. In April this year the firm established a formal public interest law department. By doing so Deneys Reitz has formally declared its commitment to public interest law.
Hirsch says she always had a passion for public interest law and her position at Deneys Reitz has helped her live her passion: “I only had two commercial subjects in my degree among subjects like gender and human rights law; it’s a miracle I was hired by this mainly commercial firm.”
“In spite of our new public interest department, public interest work is still done across the firm,” she says. “We get lawyers involved depending partly on their expertise [whether commercial, litigation or property, for example] and their interests. There is something for everyone, with past public interest clients ranging from the Aids Law Project to Unsung Heroes, Animals in Distress, Art Therapy Centre, Business & Arts South Africa, Johannesburg Society for the Blind and SA Kinderhuis. We target people’s interests. Almost every one of our 200 lawyers and professional assistants participate.
“Other large firms, such as Webber Wentzel and Edward Nathan Sonnenberg, have stand-alone public interest divisions, whereas at Deneys Reitz every member of staff is expected to give something back to the community,” Hirsch says.
Her department coordinates all the incoming cases and makes sure they are given to the right people. Some cases come directly from people who approach the firm. Others come through organisations such as ProBono.org, the Legal Aid Board or university-based law clinics.
To date the firm has formed a number of partnerships with community organisations and has assisted with pro bono matters across a variety of specialisations: land claims, evictions, housing matters, divorce, maintenance applications, contractual and commercial matters, the establishment of companies, trusts or other commercial vehicles, obtaining their public benefit organisation status, employment law advice, insurance advice and assistance with litigation.
“We get as much back from the organisations we help, as we give,” says Hirsch. For example, Deneys Reitz helps the Johannesburg-based Cida City campus with its legal work on its fundraising initiatives. From visits to this innovative, free university in downtown Johannesburg it became clear that students might not have the money to buy professional clothes for their first job interview. The students decided to create clothing-hire facility for this purpose. Hirsch and her team seized on this initiative seeing an excellent gap for involvement. During Women’s Month in August, she asked staff to donate work wear they no longer needed.
“We then invited students from Cida to come and address us. Some students have gone from incredibly impoverished backgrounds to flying to London for a job interview with JP Morgan. It was so inspiring,” she says.
“During the 16 Days of Activism [against the abuse of women and children] we handed out white ribbons to staff and clients with information leaflets on gender-related violence, made a donation to the Foundation for Human Rights, placed banners with the campaign logo in our reception, put information on our website and intranet, sent lawyers to assist the magistrate’s court with domestic violence applications and hosted in-house presentations for staff on issues regarding violence against women,” she says.
This made the staff feel so empowered that they did not hesitate to sign up again this year for the 16 Days campaign.
“Our staff have responded very well to public interest initiatives and are generally proud that the firm does this type of work,” Hirsch says. “This work brings variety and a completely different type of client base. Through the public interest work we can help the Business Arts South Africa Foundation make sure that the show, whether opera, theatre or dance, goes on. We even helped launch Classic FM’s Classic Feel magazine.”
Public interest law also spawns a spirit of cooperation among law firms. “We usually compete with other firms, but with public interest work we help one another, passing along cases to avoid conflicts of interest and sharing expertise,” she says.