Weightman's five offices have a thriving CSR programme:
Charity partnership
Weightmans's five partner charities are Clatterbridge Hospital near Liverpool, Birmingham Children’s Hospital, Mediquip4kids, Manchester, Laura Centre bereavement counselling in Leicester and London’s Great Ormond St Hospital (GOSH).
The Birmingham staff took part in the ‘Great Trade Up Game’, raising over £5,000 from just a paperclip towards the £35,000 generated by the competition towards the purchase of a new renal unit.
In London the firm has set itself a target to raise £6,500 over the past eight months for GOSH through a special fundraising project. Each of the 8 teams which make up our London office were given one day to host a ‘fundraising and GOSH profile-raising’ day, with everything from a casino night to a ‘Weightmans by the Sea’ office funfair day. So far this has raised over £7,000.
Liverpool’s ‘Weightmans’ Apprentice’ competition between September 2009 and January 2010 saw nine teams of four challenged to raise as much money as possible for Claire House whilst promoting its cause within the Liverpool community. The initiative raised over £12,000 for the charity. With the addition of dress down days, book sales, a charity skydive, golf day, silver status payroll giving, raffles, Liverpool triathlon and various sponsored marathons, overall in the year 2009/2010, the Liverpool office donated approximately £21,000 to Claire House. The office was recognised in the 2010 Regional Business Award, being shortlisted for its CSR work.
The Liverpool office have nominated a new charity Clatterbridge Cancer Research.
Young and disadvantaged people
The Manchester office sponsors the Broughton Park Rugby Club Outreach Project, which aims to give disadvantaged children focus and team skills through learning rugby.
Staff from each of the offices regularly visit both primary and secondary schools in some of the most disadvantaged areas, whether to undertake the right to read initiative, (assisting primary school children with basic reading skills) or holding mock careers interviews and cv assistance.
In May 2009, the firm´s work with the unemployed was profiled by Liverpool Cares – Karl Hughes who had started with the firm under the Care’s Ready for Work programme had been so successful that he was subsequently offered a full time role with the firm, as Team Leader in the Commercial Recoveries team, handling over £1million worth of transactions.
Volunteering
The firm's policy of offering 2 days paid leave per year per person has encouraged its staff to support a number of their personal charities.
Weightmans is a national Top 50 law firm with seven offices. The firm is growing rapidly and the success of its clients and people are key. Weightmans aims to be the law firm of choice and the employer of choice. How it helps achieve these results varies from organisation to organisation, person to person. No assumptions, no one size-fits all approach, just the very best support from a team that delivers measurable results.
The firm has a strong and fast growing reputation in the public sector market, acting for many local, police and fire authorities. The firm enjoys a pre-eminent position in the work it undertakes for local authorities offering a wrap-around support service covering the whole range of local authority work. Weightmans acts for several large local authority consortia and help individual local authorities across the country. It also has specialist expertise in Fire authority work and is expanding its offer for schools and other education bodies. Our police team is one of the largest in private practice in the UK, acting for more than 20 forces throughout England and Wales.
Weightmans’ national healthcare team has been undertaking NHSLA clinical negligence work since 1998 and has been on the NHSLA panel since 2001. The firm’s healthcare advisory team advises over 140 NHS clients and undertakes work on behalf of a number of consortia, including HPC, LPC, NWCCA. The team consists of legal specialists with expertise in clinical negligence, healthcare, mental health, primary care, NHS and public, employment, property and contract and commercial.