Clifford Chance

Clifford Chance partners with The Hague Institute for Innovation of Law to promote equal access to justice

Leading international law firm, Clifford Chance and The Hague Institute for Innovation of Law (HiiL) are proud to announce a global, multi-year partnership to promote equal access to justice for all in line with Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 16. This SDG aims to promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels.

The partnership was announced in New York on 24 September, after Clifford Chance Global Senior Partner, Jeroen Ouwehand, and HiiL CEO, Dr Sam Muller, attended the UN SDG Summit 2019. Under the partnership, Clifford Chance and HiiL will work closely to promote and develop user-friendly justice innovation at scale, with a special focus on Africa.

The first goals and activities that Clifford Chance and HiiL will collaborate on include: 

• Increasing the number of HiiL Justice Accelerators around the world and developing the social franchise model that underpins them. 
• Strengthening the Justice Entrepreneurship School.
• Helping HiiL set up a Justice Innovation Growth Fund to support justice innovators, who have proven their business models and grown the number of paying users. 
• Growing the capacity of HiiL’s Justice Transformation Labs to develop justice innovation strategies.

To achieve the goals, Clifford Chance will call upon its Applied Solutions' team, where the firm's legal expertise is combined with technology to solve complex client challenges and requirements to support and advise HiiL's SDG16.3 Legal Tech Alliance.

Founded in 2005, the social enterprise HiiL has developed into a driver of justice innovation. It works in a number of countries, primarily in Africa and the Middle East, to facilitate innovations and innovations strategies, based on data, leading to what it refers to as ‘user friendly justice.’ 

Clifford Chance Global Senior Partner, Jeroen Ouwehand, comments: "Our partnership with HiiL reiterates our commitment to contributing to the Sustainable Development Goal 16. HiiL shares our belief that technology and innovation play an integral role in all aspects of society and will be central to scaling improved access to justice across Africa and beyond. It's really great to have the opportunity to work alongside an organisation whose approach to, and supporting activities around, this crucial issue complement our own."

Dr. Sam Muller, CEO at HiiL considers this partnership "a remarkable help for HiiL in a key area of its work: setting up more Justice Accelerators and accelerating the most promising justice innovations in Africa. It is very significant that a renown and innovation driven law firm like Clifford Chance has become part of the shared commitment to access to justice for all is emerging."

Clifford Chance is committed to providing pro bono services and using the talents of its staff to widen access to justice around the world, with its staff having spent over 56,000 hours on pro bono projects in 2018/19. Clifford Chance's lawyers participate in a wide range of schemes that aim to widen access to justice, finance and education. Clifford Chance's clients in this area range from individual members of the community to NGOs fighting human rights and civil liberties cases in court and undertaking advocacy and delivering frontline services.

About The Hague Institute For Innovation of Law (HiiL)

HiiL (The Hague Institute for Innovation of Law) is a social enterprise devoted to user-friendly justice. That means justice that is easy to access, easy to understand, and effective. We will ensure that by 2030, 150 million people will be able to prevent or resolve their most pressing justice problems. We do this by stimulating innovation and scaling what works best. We are friendly rebels focused on concrete improvements in the lives of people. Data and evidence is central in all that we do. HiiL is an equal opportunity, international employer. We are based in The Hague, City of Peace and Justice.

About Clifford Chance's Responsible Business and Community Commitments in Africa

Clifford Chance has been active in Africa for over 40 years and its long-standing commitment to the continent goes far beyond the sum total of the legal advice and transactions its lawyers have worked on there. Our involvement revolves around the development of the rule of the law and the legal profession, building long-standing and fruitful relationships with the best law firms across the continent during and in-between transactions and supporting communities by widening access to justice, education and finance. We provide legal advice and funding to our global NGOs as well as to local community-based organisations. For example, we have contributed to the African Prisons Project, an initiative which seeks to ensure prison inmates have access to the education and information they need to know their rights and access justice.

About Clifford Chance

Clifford Chance is one of the world's pre-eminent law firms with significant depth and range of resources across five continents. As a single, fully integrated global partnership, we pride ourselves on our approachable, collegial and team-based way of working. We always strive to exceed the expectations of our clients, which include corporates from all commercial and industrial sectors, governments, regulators, trade bodies and not-for-profit organisations. We provide them with the highest-quality advice and legal insight, which combines the firm's global standards with in-depth local expertise.