The Projects That Won Spain’s Top Pro Bono Prize
The eleventh edition of the Expansión Jurídico Awards has put a spotlight on the most impactful pro bono work carried out by Spanish law firms and corporate legal departments, with Clifford Chance taking the top prize for its legal representation of Afghan women fleeing Taliban persecution. The project, led by senior associates Octavio Canseco and Marc Casas in collaboration with NetWomening, has so far secured protection for 13 women and six minors by challenging Spain’s diplomatic mission in Islamabad in both administrative and contentious-administrative courts.
The awards highlighted a wide range of initiatives that go far beyond traditional charitable giving. Deloitte Legal produced the first edition of a ‘Guide for Non-Profit Entities’, a practical Q&A resource covering corporate, tax, labour, administrative and criminal law for social organisations, developed with the law faculty of Icade. DLA Piper, together with CEU San Pablo University and the AVA Foundation, released a free legal guide for families with disabled persons, addressing issues around legal capacity, guardianship and patrimonial protection.
Technology also played a role: Ecija developed an offline artificial intelligence solution to give prison inmates access to clear, personalised legal information without internet connectivity, overcoming institutional security barriers. Other finalists included Faus Moliner, which represents patients with rare diseases fighting for access to special-situation medicines on constitutional grounds; Garrigues, which ensured GDPR and AI Act compliance for a telepresence robot connecting children with cancer to their classrooms; and Gómez-Acebo and Pombo, whose public law team designed the regulatory pathway to scale a new paediatric leukaemia treatment protocol across Spain. Maio Legal supported rewilding efforts, while Repsol’s legal department built a full integrity system for a federation serving vulnerable youth.
Why Pro Bono Is Becoming a Strategic Asset for Law Firms
The breadth of these projects reflects a structural shift in the Spanish legal market: pro bono is no longer an optional extra but a differentiator that influences client choice, talent recruitment and the profession’s standing. The firms involved are not simply donating hours; they are deploying specialised legal skills to solve complex problems that often sit at the intersection of regulation, technology and fundamental rights.
What Clifford Chance’s Win Signals
Clifford Chance’s representation of Afghan women is a stark example of law as a tool to defend human dignity. By taking on a case against a Spanish diplomatic mission, the firm demonstrated a willingness to confront state institutions — a move that carries reputational weight and underscores the independence of the legal function. The fact that the project was led by senior associates rather than partners also shows that pro bono is increasingly a career development platform, not a pro forma assignment for junior lawyers.
Pro Bono as a Talent Magnet
The article notes that many young lawyers now rank pro bono programmes among the most valued aspects when choosing where to start their careers. This is a concrete competitive advantage in a market where law firms compete intensely for top graduates. The experience of working on high-stakes, unconventional cases — from rare disease litigation to prison technology — builds empathy, adaptability and a broader understanding of the law that commercial work alone rarely provides. In a tightening labour market, firms that can point to meaningful pro bono records have a tangible edge in attracting and retaining talent.
Corporate CSR Meets Client Expectations
Clients and investors are also paying attention. The publication of sector-focused guides by Deloitte Legal and DLA Piper serves a dual purpose: it addresses a real information gap for non-profits and families while demonstrating the firms’ deep regulatory knowledge to potential fee-paying clients. This “show, don’t tell” approach to corporate social responsibility transforms pro bono from a glossy annual-report page into a visible demonstration of competence. In a highly regulated economy like Spain’s, that kind of expertise marketing carries increasing weight with corporate clients who face their own ESG reporting and supply chain expectations.
The Limits of Goodwill
While the projects are impressive, the article also highlights the dependency of social organisations on this unremunerated work. Many of the finalist initiatives address systemic gaps — lack of accessible legal information in prisons, missing frameworks for ethical conduct in youth services — that arguably should be filled by public institutions. The risk for law firms is that they become a substitute for state responsibility, stretching their own resources without lasting structural change. The true measure of success will be whether these projects inspire permanent policy adoption, as Gómez-Acebo and Pombo’s work on the leukaemia protocol aims to do.
What the Finalists’ Experience Means for Legal Business Leaders
For law firm managing partners and general counsel, the 2025 Expansión Jurídico finalists offer a clear set of lessons that translate into operational decisions:
- Link pro bono to practice areas strategically. Ecija’s AI tool for prisons drew on the firm’s tech and data privacy expertise; Garrigues leveraged its GDPR and AI regulation team for the Buddy OC robot. Aligning pro bono with the firm’s core competencies turns the work into a demonstration of real-world capability, not just a goodwill exercise.
- Use pro bono to build the careers of mid-level and senior associates. Clifford Chance’s senior associates led a politically sensitive international case — the kind of responsibility that accelerates professional growth and loyalty. Treat pro bono leadership as a formal part of career progression, not an afterthought.
- Create public resources that double as expertise marketing. Deloitte Legal’s guide for non-profits and DLA Piper’s guide for families with disabled members are permanent assets that drive the firms’ visibility in regulated sectors. For other firms, a similar public guide — on technology law for social enterprises, for example — can serve the same dual purpose.
- Monitor whether pro bono projects lead to regulatory or policy change. Gómez-Acebo and Pombo’s roadmap for scaling the ALL Together protocol is a model: the firm’s legal analysis could catalyse a nationwide treatment standard. Track the policy outcomes of your pro bono work and make them part of the firm’s public-interest narrative.
Risk & Opportunity Assessment
| Commercial Risk | Low | Pro bono work itself rarely disrupts revenue directly; the finalist projects were carefully scoped and did not detract from fee-paying work. The larger risk is opportunity cost if pro bono hours escalate without strategic management, but the award-winning firms show clear alignment with practice strengths. |
| Competitive Risk | Medium | As the article notes, pro bono is now a factor in talent choice. Law firms that lack comparable programmes may lose out on recruiting and retaining young lawyers, especially as ESG-aware graduates consider social commitment a prerequisite. |
| Regulatory Risk | Low | No new regulatory obligations arise from these projects. However, the use of AI in prison settings (Ecija) and data flows in the Buddy OC robot (Garrigues) required careful compliance with GDPR and the AI Act; missteps would have risked fines and reputational damage, but the firms managed this proactively. |
| Reputation Risk | Low | The only tangible reputational risk for these firms would have been failing to deliver on the pro bono promises or appearing to use the initiatives solely for marketing. The awards and the detailed project descriptions indicate genuine commitment, and no such criticism has been reported. |
| Technology Disruption | Low | Ecija’s offline AI tool is innovative but confined to a specific pilot; it does not threaten existing legal tech suppliers or service models. Garrigues’ work on the Buddy OC robot is compliance-focused, not a disruption to its own business. |
| Commercial Opportunity | High | The finalists demonstrate that pro bono can serve as a live case study for clients. Competence shown in complex, high-stakes pro bono matters — such as Clifford Chance’s litigation against a government entity or Deloitte’s guide for non-profits — directly supports business development when pitching to clients in the same regulated spaces. |
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