Social Responsibility, A Practice Beyond Legal

Banwo & Ighodalo’s approach to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is to use its expertise to create a positive impact around the world.

We focus on providing access to “justice” and opportunities by:

• Providing legal services to members of our community unable to afford legal services (see Probono section below);

• Supporting our partners who occupy positions on the boards of not-for-profit and charitable entities.

• Providing access to education to select law students by providing financial and in-kind support; and,

• Paid internship opportunities to secondary school students and making general charitable donations e.g. 1st February 2016, we formally adopted “Ebute Elefun Nursery and Primary School”, which is a public school on the Lagos Island, run by the Government of Lagos State. Under this initiative, we would be:

  1. contributing to the development and improvement of the School's infrastructure and facilities; and,

  2. providing educational materials, appropriate extra-curricular and other related support to the pupils of the School. This will not be a one-off gesture as we intend to make a meaningful and lasting contribution to the lives of these pupils; knowing that we are privileged to be able to give back to Society in this manner.

We also maintain a positive and open workplace where our employees are encouraged to commit to worthy causes whilst providing the flexibility to enable them to do that.

It is our belief that being socially and environmentally responsible is not only essential to the long-term sustainability of our business, but also the minimum we can give back to our society.

Environmental Initiatives the Firm has been involved in or led in the last five (5) years.

Due to the nature of our practice and the legal industry, in which the main output is document preparation, we promote a culture of energy savings for our office environment.

We therefore, focus on recycling and reductions in energy and resources consumption. These reductions are achieved by, among other practices, using more energy-efficient light bulbs and encouraging employees to shut off lights, computers and all equipment when they are not in their offices.

In ensuring reduction of printing waste, we engage intensely in electronic file keeping. Additionally, we employ the recycling of toner by refilling cartridges, copiers and printers have been programmed for two-sided usage and employees are constantly encouraged to do more work electronically without printing.

Probono work

We are committed to providing pro bono representation to individuals and organizations in the communities where we practice. We believe that, in a profession dedicated to achieving justice, it is our duty to help ensure all individuals have equal access to legal representation, regardless of their means. Pro bono activities also provide invaluable legal training and experience and foster a greater awareness of the diversity of people in the community, the problems they face, and the creative ways those problems can be addressed.

A sampling of our recent pro bono representations includes:

• Corona Schools Trust Council

• Fate Foundation

• Lagos State PILP

• Live well Initiative

• Christopher Kolade Foundation