About Allies

ALLIES (A Local Lawyer in Every School) is an alliance of key stakeholders in the legal profession and education sector, with the aim to bring together lawyers who are school governors, and encourage other lawyers to consider becoming governors.

ALLIES aims:

• to bring together qualified lawyers who are already serving school governors in order to raise awareness, improve communications, spread best practice, and encourage mutual support and training, and
• to encourage other qualified lawyers to consider applying to become school governors.

In particular by National Pro Bono Week 2009 , ALLIES aims to:

• Have produced a summary of current school governor engagement by the legal profession in England & Wales.
• Be enabling the first regional and local hubs for support and training.
• Be facilitating channels of communication with schools, law firms, chambers and in-house teams.
• Have produced summaries of the advantages of engagement by lawyers as school governors, aimed at schools, law firms, chambers and legal employers.
• Be working with SGOSS and BITC on achieving further appointments of lawyers to school governing bodies where there is greatest strategic need
• Be working to improve the recognition by schools and by the legal profession of the contribution lawyers can make to governing bodies.
  
  

The advisory group for ALLIES includes leading firms already developing dialogue between lawyers and schools, and in particular:

• The National Governors' Association
• School Governors One Stop Shop
• Business in the Community, and the National Education & Employer Partnership Taskforce
• The Citizenship Foundation
• Getting on Board
• The Department for Schools, Children and Families
• The Law Society of England and Wales
• The Bar Council
• Institute of Legal Executives (ILEX)
• The Government Legal Service
• LawWorks
• Free Representation Unit (FRU)
• Bar Pro Bono Unit, and Bar in the Community

ALLIES Launch

Back in November of 2009, members of the SGOSS team travelled to the East of England to help officially launch ALLIES. Held at the Forum in the centre of Norwich, the event was attended by around 50 people from the legal profession and the local community who were interested in volunteering as a school governor.

With speakers that included, the Rt. Hon. Charles Clarke, MP for Norwich South and former Secretary of State for Education, local lawyer Nicholas Hancox; Fred Corbett, Director of Children’s Services for Norfolk County Council and the CEOs of LawWorks and SGOSS, the audience were briefed on the role of the school governor, the vacancies that exist in Norfolk, the benefits which volunteering can offer to the school, employers and the volunteer, and how to get involved.

Applications have already been received by the School Governors’ One-Stop Shop but more volunteers are still needed. Click here to apply today

Rebecca Hilsenrath, CEO of LawWorks addresses the attendees of the launch.