Pro bono
Wiersholm has a strong and proud pro bono tradition and contributes several FTEs of pro bono hours every year.
We have mainly structured our pro bono work through established partners. This enables long-term collaborations that work well for both parties – something we believe is crucial for such collaborations to succeed.
Our partners include, among others: Save the Children, HumAk, NOAS, The Crown Prince and Crown Princess’ Fund and Mino.jur. In addition, we also assist individual clients pro bono on special occasions.
Save the Children
Wiersholm has been one of Save the Children’s main partners since 2019. The collaboration runs along three axes; legal advice in line with Save the Children’s needs, financial support and a joint trainee scheme, called Responsible Business Trainee. Through this work, we want to help strengthen children’s rights around the world.
In January 2024, we extended the cooperation agreement for another five years, and at the same time increased the number of pro bono hours in the agreement. Read more about Save the Children here.
HumAk – law students’ humanitarian campaign
Wiersholm is a proud main partner of HumAk, the humanitarian campaign spearheaded by Norwegian law students and supported by the Norwegian Bar Association. Our partnership with HumAk is more than just a sponsorship; in addition to donations, we also contribute through lectures, support for events and the initiation of “donor relays”.
The aim of HumAk’s 2024 campaign was to secure human rights in mining communities in Zimbabwe, and in collaboration with Norwegian Church Aid and the local organisation Zimbabwe Environmental Law Association (ZELA), HumAk is working to reduce the negative impacts of mining and improve the lives of those affected.
Norwegian organisation for asylum seekers (NOAS)
Wiersholm has a long-standing collaboration with NOAS (Norwegian Organisation for Asylum Seekers). The collaboration with NOAS is part of our commitment to society, where we provide pro bono legal assistance in connection with judicial reviews of asylum matters of fundamental importance. Every year we assist NOAS with several matters involving asylum seekers who are in danger of being deported from Norway. In addition, we assist NOAS on various CSR issues.
The Crown Prince and the Crown Princess’ Foundation
The vision of the Crown Prince and the Crown Princess’ Foundation is to “strengthen the community for young people, so that everyone feels a sense of belonging and can participate”. The foundation focuses first and foremost on young people who are at risk of social exclusion. Therefore, the foundation always collaborates with selected initiatives that aim to provide young people with new arenas in which they can succeed. Wiersholm was engaged as an advisor to the foundation in 2011 in connection with a restructuring and reorganisation of the foundation, and later became a pro bono partner.
In recent years, Wiersholm has assisted the foundation directly with legal advice on specific projects with which the foundation collaborates.
Mino.Jur
Wiersholm is a proud and long-term partner of Mino.jur, a student organisation for minority law students in Bergen and Oslo. The organisation works to establish networks and contacts between minorities, as well as to contribute to professional development.
As a partner, we organise several seminars and events together with Mino.Jur to strengthen the legal minority community. Among other things, we have a mentoring scheme that connects law students with minority backgrounds with various mentors in Wiersholm, who provide guidance and act as conversation partners with whom the students can discuss careers and challenges in the legal profession. We also contribute to the annual “Mino-Jur-dagene”, including lectures and courses on various legal topics. We believe this collaboration plays an important role in our efforts to attract more talent from minority backgrounds.