Corrs and the Community

At Corrs we believe in our social responsibilities and support a range of activities.

Pro Bono

Corrs has an established pro bono and community services program, led by a dedicated national pro bono co-ordinator.

We have a history of supporting local and international charitable and non-government organisations. We were a foundation member of the Public Interest Law Clearing House (PILCH) in both New South Wales and Victoria and also a member of QPILCH in Queensland. In Western Australia, we have performed pro bono work for the Western Australian Aboriginal Legal Service, the Employment Law Centre and the Mental Health Law Centre. Our pro bono contributions provide legal services in litigious and transactional matters at no charge. Recently, we have been involved in setting up privately funded joint ventures between commercial organisations and indigenous communities to run tourism centres in outback centres. We support organisations like the Salvation Army, RSPCA, The Big Issue and Very Special Kids that run programs to help young Australians through tough times and create opportunities for them to participate in their local communities.

A feature of our approach is to develop community programs where our staff can actively participate in initiatives that provide a direct benefit to the disadvantaged and underprivileged in the community. One of our lawyers has been participating in the LEAPS! Mentoring, a program for encouraging and assisting promising students that is run through NSW Young Lawyers. Another has been volunteering at the Redfern Legal Centre for the past year. We also encourage secondments to organisations such as PILCH.

Charitable Organisations

In addition to our pro bono activities and community action programs, we support a range of charitable organisations through donations. We recently contributed to Australia for UNHCR which provided shelter in Aceh for the tsunami survivors.

Workplace Giving Program

We have established a Workplace Giving Program to enable staff to support their nominated charities through regular payroll deductions.

Our Environment

We are also mindful of the impact we may make on the environment during the course of conducting our business. Corrs' environmental policy was established to ensure we take into account environmental considerations when implementing new business procedures and to guide our purchasing decisions. Examples of the types of initiatives that are in place include the:

• recycling of printer cartridges, paper and stationery;
• use of glass and pottery rather than polystyrene containers; and
• use of online services wherever possible, as well as, default settings for all printers to require double sided printing to significantly reduce paper usage.