Launch of the Greece Collaborative Pro Bono Project

August.20.2019

Orrick is proud to be one of the founding firms of the recently launched Greece Collaborative pro bono project, alongside Dentons, Allen & Overy, White & Case and Ashurst. Legal Week recently profiled this project.

Orrick’s International Head of Pro Bono, Community and Sustainability Amy Grunske and Pro Bono Counsel Rene Kathawala helped lead the development of this unprecedented pro bono collaboration between the five firms and two NGOs, Refugee Legal Support and European Lawyers in Lesvos, to help with the current access to justice crisis for asylum seekers in Greece.

There are more than 75,000 asylum seekers in the country, most of them living in terrible conditions in refugee camps on the Greek islands and the mainland. The Greek legal aid system doesn’t have the capacity to reach, inform, advise and represent the majority of these asylum seekers.

The Greece Collaborative project is based on the island of Lesvos, where there are now over 9,000 asylum seekers in a camp built for 3,000. Each firm involved in the project has committed to £15,000 in funding and to sending a number of volunteer lawyers for a minimum of two weeks over the course of the next year to provide pro bono assistance and advice, particularly with first instance interviews and family reunification. Firm volunteer lawyers undergo intensive training before they fly out. While on the ground, they’re matched with an immigration specialist volunteer to work with, and are supervised by an experienced Greek lawyer.

“The level of need is truly overwhelming, and we were compelled to try to develop a pro bono project where we could help in some meaningful way,” said Amy. “Through the Greece Collaborative we are able to utilize the pro bono capacity of international law firms to increase the stretched capacity of expert legal NGOs already working there. By assisting these experts in the provision of legal information and assistance, our pro bono volunteers are able to use their legal skills to help protect human rights, support due process, and uphold the rule of law.”

Our London-based managing associate Christina Hatinoglu was one of the first volunteers for this project earlier this month, Milan-based associate Giuseppe Cuminetti is there now, and we have four other lawyers from our London, Düsseldorf and Geneva offices signed up for travel later in the year.

Amy Grunske Head of International Pro Bono, Sustainability & Community Responsibility

London

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D:+44 20 7862 4672
E: [email protected]

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Amy Grunske Head of International Pro Bono, Sustainability & Community Responsibility

London

Amy works with a variety of international, national and local non-profit organisations and charities to identify their legal needs and to develop and facilitate tailored pro bono legal training, assistance, advice and representation. She also builds strong partnerships and networks with these clients and other partners such as law centres, academic institutions, government institutions and UN agencies to collaboratively develop high impact pro bono projects that use the law, policy and advocacy as tools for social change and development in the areas of human rights, conservation, rule of law and access to justice.

Amy also leads on the further development of the impact finance and social enterprise pro bono practice across the international offices, facilitating legal services to clients seeking to achieve positive social and environmental impact alongside financial returns.

Amy contributes to the continued development of the pro bono sector in the UK, helping to lead on initiatives such as the UK Collaborative Plan for Pro Bono and UKAdemy Pro Bono Training Programme. She also works to involve the firm's commercial clients as trusted partners in select pro bono projects, supporting the development of in-house pro bono.

Amy has many years’ experience advising the private legal sector on the strategic development and management of pro bono programmes across a number of jurisdictions. An Australian qualified lawyer, Amy holds graduate and post-graduate degrees in the areas of law, human rights, international development and psychology.

Rene Kathawala Pro Bono Counsel

New York

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D:+1 212 506 5100
E: [email protected]

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Rene Kathawala Pro Bono Counsel

New York

Rene works with other pro bono counsel and legal services nonprofits to increase the quantity and quality of pro bono representation that is being provided to indigent clients in each of the cities worldwide where Orrick has a presence. In addition, he supervises and directly works on cases in such diverse areas as immigration law, family and matrimonial law, housing law, public benefits law, employment law counseling, impact litigation and nonprofit advice and counseling. Rene has worked on many substantial matters in the federal and state systems over his career that are reported as precedent. He also works with firm attorneys to strengthen the firm's innovative Impact Finance and Social Enterprise team that he founded and that provides representation in diverse transactional areas to nonprofit, for profit and hybrid organizations dedicated to providing basic services to poor persons around the world in areas including microfinance, water, education, energy, housing and health.

Based on his long-standing commitment to access to justice issues, Rene has been appointed to serve as a member of the New York City Bar Association Right to Counsel Task Force and the New York City Bar Association Family Court Judicial Appointment & Assignment Process Work Group. In recognition of his exemplary work in family law, United States District Judge Bloom appointed Rene as a special master in a federal court family law matter in 2014 in the Eastern District of New York in case number 07-cv-02565-ARR-LB, styled Garmhausen et al v. United States Department of Justice et al.