Mission Statement

Mission Statement of Legal Voices for the Future

This is an impact strategy of Legal Voices for the Future updated as of August 2023. This strategy is written to bring our purpose to life by outlining a strategic focus where, as a one-of-its-kind organisation, we can have the greatest impact. 

  1. Our values 

We are an impartial, independent and inclusive peer-to-peer knowledge-sharing and networking space. We maintain our impartiality and independence by not affiliating with any law firm, chambers or other organisation. We maintain our inclusiveness by ensuring, if possible, that our work is accessible online for anyone who wishes to benefit from it. 

  1. Our purpose 

Legal Voices for the Future (LVF) is a collaborative networking and knowledge-sharing forum established by early career practitioners from different fields of law. Our objectives are: 

  • to give voice to young lawyers on the most pressing planetary and societal issues facing us today, including the climate and ecological crises; 
  • to allow young lawyers to gain the benefit of high-quality education on important planetary and societal issues; and 
  • to enable young lawyers to connect to their peers and feel empowered to play their part in the transition to the net zero, nature-positive, circular society that lives within the planetary boundaries. 
  1. Our impact 

The impact we want to achieve is simple and inherently tied to our tripartite mission, as follows: 

  • we want every young lawyer to feel empowered to speak up when they find themselves in the circumstances where pressing planetary and societal issues are being ignored or downplayed;
  • when doing so, we want every young lawyer to have enough knowledge about these issues to speak up with confidence and authority; and
  • when in doubt or need for support, we want every young lawyer to have a trusted network of peers, who they can call on to help them responsibly form their views, critically check their understanding and confidentially share their own experience.   

We also believe that by having these direct impacts on young lawyers, we can contribute, indirectly, to the bottom-up societal change which will result in the legal profession becoming more attuned, responsible and accountable for the consequences of our advice on the entire society, including the people and the planet. 

  1. Our limitations 

We know that our intended impacts – both direct and indirect – are ambitious, which is why we want to acknowledge the limitations we face. 

Even though we do not define what ‘young lawyer’ means and we see youth as capable of stemming from a variety of factors, such as age, knowledge, passion or indeed ‘the heart’, we appreciate that the majority of our audience are lawyers young in their age and stage of career. This means that the impact our work can support is mostly a bottom-up change. In other words, it is the law students, pupil barristers, trainees, junior associates and early-career legal professionals in the government, academia, private and public sector, who are going to be the main beneficiaries of our impact. 

This puts a limitation on our impact, given that these young lawyers, despite their passion, knowledge and commitment, do not always have the recognised level of authority that would allow them to affect a top-down change. Whether or not their passion, knowledge and commitment translate into the wider societal change within their organisations and, in time, the entire profession, often depends on the willingness of their employers, supervisors and colleagues to amplify their message.

This realisation is crucial for our strategy. It tells us that while our primary focus should be on empowering young lawyers in all the ways described above, we should also consider strategic ways in which we can influence their employers, supervisors and colleagues. Although the top-down change is unlikely to be our purpose, we should be cognizant of opportunities to positively influence such change, and, in such a way, amplify the voice we are helping young lawyers to find and express. 

In addition to this limitation, we also want to acknowledge limitations stemming from our own backgrounds – cultural, intellectual, social and ethnic. By our very focus on lawyers and our origins in the UK, most of our members and the members of our Stewardship Committee are highly educated individuals who often, but not always, come from privileged social backgrounds of European descent. We are committed to keeping our membership open to all those who differ from us – culturally, intellectually, socially and ethically – and promote diversity in our organisation with an aim to address these limitations inherent in how and where we came into being.  

Finally, we also want to acknowledge limitations related to our own purpose as a peer-to-peer knowledge-sharing and networking space. As peers, we do not profess to be experts on the topics covered in our knowledge sharing activities. Rather we want to acknowledge that there may be instances, however we strive to prevent them, that we may sometimes get things wrong. To mitigate this risk, we actively seek to engage with external experts, who are often invited as interviewees to our knowledge sharing activities. We believe that in this way, we strike the right balance between peer-to-peer collaboration and the need to be diligent about the accuracy of the knowledge we seek to share with other young lawyers. 

  1. Our challenges 

As a not-for-profit organisation run pro bono on the time, passion and commitment of our Stewardship Committee and members, we necessarily face two challenges – one that relates to time and capacity and the other that relates to our reputation.

Our time and capacity challenge arises from the fact that we are managed and run by a group of volunteers most of whom have full-time jobs or academic commitments. Keeping this in mind, we will prioritise our work as outlined in our theory of change below and always allow our members, including the members of our Stewardship Committee, to express their need to temporarily step back, which will be fully respected. In future, as our opportunities grow with our impact, we envisage setting up a permanent secretariat and/ or hiring an executive director, when the need arises. 

Our reputational challenge arises from the fact that we may inadvertently find ourselves associated with organisations whose aims or impacts conflict with our values and purpose. In other words, we risk getting involved in greenwashing. Although this risk is unavoidable, we will guard against it by allowing our members and our Stewardship Committee to critically discuss our involvement with organisations and partnerships. Our Stewardship Committee will be responsible for deciding by simple majority vote whether a particular involvement, partnership or affiliation presents a risk of greenwashing that we are unwilling to bear. 

If we ever happen to be involved in greenwashing, this will be acknowledged publicly via our social media channels and an apology/ explanation of how these circumstances have occurred will be given. We believe that this honest and open approach will show our members that our intentions have always been good, yet some circumstances are simply beyond our power to influence.    

Even as we ourselves seek to identify and avoid instances of greenwashing, as one actor within a changing landscape of organisations committed to the same goal, we also recognise a need to challenge ourselves on ensuring we align with our values.

  1. Our theory of change 

Our values, purpose, impact, limitations and challenges all influence our theory of change, which we divide into four related but distinct layers of influence. Each of these layers aims to support our impacts for young lawyers as actors in the legal profession. 

The four layers of influence, organised by the size of their audience rather than their relation to our purpose, are: 

FIRST: Industry layer of impact

Although it is not our purpose to affect a top-down change, we recognise that we can contribute to such change and, by doing so, deliver our purpose of giving a voice to young lawyers by amplifying it. We can do so by influencing the legal profession on the industry layer through participation in conferences, webinars, podcasts and other events that are targeted at senior legal professionals rather than young lawyers. 

This layer of influence, although having potentially the largest audience in terms of numbers, should not distract us from focusing on delivering our direct impacts for young lawyers. This means that if we find ourselves short of time or capacity, it is this layer of influence that we will put aside for a while until our capacity improves.  

We should be cognizant that engaging in this layer of influence can sometimes generate conflicts with our values and give rise to reputational risk. This may happen, for example, if we are invited to speak at a ticketed event alongside controversial speakers, or about a controversial topic. When deciding whether or not to accept such an invitation, we should always keep in mind that in delivering our purpose, we will inevitably encounter people who disagree with us and that talking to such people is part of giving voice to young lawyers too. In other words, our impact would be limited if we always spoke to the room of like-minded people. 

At the same time, the decision to turn down or accept a controversial invitation will always be context-specific and our Stewardship Committee will consider it in its own context. If an invitation raises serious risks that our good reputation could be used to the benefit of a controversial actor, by, for example, legitimising their contested or unproven environmental or societal claims, our Stewardship Committee will discuss these risks and decide whether or not to accept such invitation by simple majority.

SECOND: Large community layer of impact   

Large community layer of influence is our primary means of delivering our purpose. In this context, the large community consists of any young lawyer, who decides to join us for any length of time and without any commitment to give back. 

We address our large community in our monthly knowledge sessions. These are delivered by our members and cover important environmental and societal issues. Anyone can join them in person or online to learn from and connect with fellow young lawyers. By engaging with our large community in this way, we democratise legal knowledge and deliver our purpose of allowing  anyone to gain the benefit of high-quality education, connect to their peers and feel empowered to pay their part in the transition to the net zero, nature-positive, circular society that lives within the planetary boundaries.

There are certain reputational risks that arise from this layer of influence. These relate specifically to a possibility that we will inadvertently associate with an organisation, which either gives us premises to hold the knowledge session or employs our member who delivers the session. As a not-for-profit organisation we cannot avoid such risks completely. However, to mitigate them, we will ensure that we are solely responsible for promoting our events via our social media channels, and that the member who delivers the session does so in their personal capacity, rather than an employee of a particular organisation. 

THIRD: Small community layer of impact

Small community layer of influence is our ancillary means of delivering our purpose. A small community includes only our members, many of whom have decided to give back by volunteering their time to assist us in our marketing or fundraising efforts, or deliver their own knowledge session. 

We address our small community primarily in our quarterly member-only webinars, which we hold online as presentations or interviews on important societal or environmental issues with experienced lawyers from our profession. By giving our members additional opportunities to learn about these issues we further our purpose of allowing them to learn about these issues and connect to one another in smaller and more intimate settings. 

Relatively small reputational risks arise from this layer of influence. Similarly to the large community layer of influence, the risk of association with a particular organisation arises from the affiliation of our members involved in the organisation of the webinar. However, given that these webinars will not be advertised to the wider public via our social media channels, but only to our members via emails, this risk is easy to mitigate by ensuring that the members involved in the organisation of the webinars do so in their personal capacity.

FOURTH: Individual layer of impact 

Finally, an individual layer of influence is another ancillary means of delivering our purpose. 

To date, this layer of influence has happened serendipitously, when our members or individuals interested in our work reached out to the members of our Stewardship Committee via email or social media for help and advice. Our members have also connected to one another when attending our knowledge sessions, as part of the regular networking. This layer of influence furthers our purpose as it enables the development of close, friendship-like relationships and bonds of trust between our members, which are fundamental for achieving our impact. While we recognise the need for such relationships to develop naturally, we envisage that in future, if time and capacity allow, the individual layer of influence may be formalised in a mentorship scheme. 

The individual layer of influence carries low risk. It is dependent on the integrity of our members and the trust they built with our Stewardship Committee, as well as among themselves. While our members themselves are solely responsible for their own integrity, we believe that the benefit of our membership will help them resolve any moral dilemmas, be it via engaging with us on a group or individual level. The members of our Stewardship Committee will be chosen with a view to maintaining our integrity and reputation keeping in mind that we all make mistakes. It is not the mistakes that define us but how to address and learn from them.