As our Firm has grown, so have our community engagement efforts. In 2017, Dentons' professionals in offices across six continents applied their legal and business skills, passionate commitment and boundless energy to helping others. With more people in more locations than any other law firm in the world, we showed that our ability to support and contribute to communities around the globe is also unmatched.

Advising on the unique legal needs of trans and gender diverse people

In 2019 Dentons launch Australia’s first Trans and Gender Diverse Legal Service in partnership with the Inner City Legal Centre (ICLC) in Sydney. The Service, which is the first of its kind in Australia, offers free legal advice and support to members of the trans and gender diverse community. The legal issues trans and gender diverse people face are unique and often complex, so our solicitors provide advice on a pro bono basis.

Supporting local artists

Dentons is committed to supporting the arts and for the past six years has provided pro bono services to local artists living in remote Australia. In 2017, solicitors in our Sydney office, in conjunction with the Arts Law Centre of Australia, traveled to Alice Springs in central Australia to draft wills for indigenous artists at a community-run art center. Providing wills for artists ensures that income and royalties from their artwork is distributed in accordance with the artist's wishes in the event that they pass, keeping valuable income within the artist's community.

Dentons also drafted a consignment agreement for the Tangentyere Art Centre to put in place with art galleries and registered the security interest created under the consignment agreement on the Personal Property Securities Register (PPSR) to ensure that the art center's rights over the artworks are protected.

Working for marriage equality

In the lead-up to the 2017 marriage equality postal survey in Australia, some members of the public commenced a challenge to the lawfulness of the survey in the High Court of Australia. Specifically, one ground of the challenge related to the lawfulness of the public expenditure.

Lawyers in our Sydney office were asked by the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC), one of the applicants in those proceedings, to advise on how other jurisdictions have dealt with jurisdictional issues such as the standing for members of the public in such proceedings. And PIAC needed the information within 24 hours. With the clock ticking, the Sydney team reached out to the Firm's pro bono partner, who facilitated introductions to colleagues in our London and Canada offices. Together the team produced the advice within 24 hours.

Lawyers from our disputes team have also been undertaking pro bono work for Australian Marriage Equality, helping them to resist breaches of the organization's trademarks during the course of the postal survey campaign and to stop people from profiting from use of those marks.

Supporting local organisations

At Dentons we pride ourselves on being ‘in and of the community’. So many of our pro bono services focus on supporting the local communities in which we live and work. 
For example, in Sydney we support organisations with pro bono work such as the Seniors Rights Service and Salvos Legal.

Our team in South Australia has a longstanding relationship with Catherine House, Cancer Council SA and JusticeNet SA.