As a progressive legal practice, Judge & Priestley have long been aware of our wider responsibilities to the communities that we work in and serve. Though we have a long history of local community involvement, our commitment to adding social value has been formalised in recent years through the formation of two key committees, one covering Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), and the other Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DE&I).
The CSR Committee is headed by one of the equity partners, Robert Davis, and made up of staff members from across the business. The committee is tasked with agreeing and delivering on our environmental policies, and charitable / community engagement activities.
Environmental policy
Reducing the environmental impact of the business is a primary focus of the CSR Committee. The committee recently delivered our second carbon footprint analysis and were pleased to announce that we had been upgraded from a silver Greenly rating to the Gold level. This is a score assigned to a company by the independent Greenly platform, which measures and evaluates a company’s carbon footprint and climate strategy, essentially ranking their commitment to sustainability based on factors like greenhouse gas emissions, reduction initiatives, and overall decarbonization progress.
Whilst we were pleased with this rating new rating, the committee will continue to lead our efforts to improve further and deliver on its current objective to achieve Net Zero by 2033.
Beyond this environmental objective, as a firm, we are committed to actively contributing to our local communities. We already do so in a range of ways.
School and student engagement activities
We are committed to supporting access to experience and awareness of law as a career option and supporting those from less advantaged or minority groups to gain such experience. Work Experience: We have a programme for providing work experience placements for local students and students proposed by our client organisations. Schools support: We perform school engagement activities, including attending secondary schools careers days to talk to Year 10 and Year 11 students about legal careers and presenting at group sessions about the legal profession. We have also hosted sessions to help students with CV writing and mock job interviews.
Support for local and national charities
Our staff regularly vote to appoint 2 charities (one local, one national) to support with corporate charity fund raising initiatives and events. In addition, we also support other local charitable initiatives, through sponsorships, fund raising and donation of staff time.
Our current national charity is Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM). Our staff participated in their recent sponsored Halloween Walk and manned CALM’s “Putt and Chipping Challenge” at the BMW PGA Championship, helping raise £15,500 for the charity on the day.
Our current local charity is Demelza children’s hospices. Our staff are currently involved in assisting to run one of Demelza’s charity shops, collecting and sorting shop donations and sponsoring their Xmas Carol Concert for example.
Other charitable activities
Lead by our staff we regularly support other national charitable events such as the MacMillan Coffee Morning, Breast Cancer Awareness “Wear it Pink” day, Refuge, and a bake off for LGBTQ charities for example. Additionally, our staff regularly support the London Legal Support Trust which raises funds to support people with legal costs who would otherwise be unable to afford representation, through their annual London Legal Walk.
We are heavily involved with the Greenwich and Bexley Community Hospice. We have been one of the lead sponsors of their annual “Colour Run” family fun day and their Xmas celebrations. We also support the Age Exchange Café in Blackheath, the Blackheath Halls community projects, and local grassroots football, hockey, and rugby clubs through sponsorship.
Staff are also allowed additional paid leave to support charitable causes of their choosing.
