20 years of opportunities! Happy Birthday Pro Bono, Skills & Employability!

Back in 2005 Professor Julie Price was given the go ahead to create a portfolio of opportunities for law students in Cardiff. Since then, that range of opportunities and the team responsible, has grown and grown. 2025 marks 2 decades of Pro Bono, Skills & Employability at the School of Law and Politics.

To explore what they’ve achieved during that time, the team has gone back into their archives and produced a report which covers their milestones, projects past and present, catches up with alumni and looks to the future on what can be achieved next.

The legal profession, like many others, is competitive and increasingly students need to do more than just obtain a good degree. Their CVs need to illustrate their experience and demonstrate skills that are going to stand them in good stead in employment in years to come.

This is where Pro Bono, Skills & Employability at the School of Law and Politics comes in. The opportunities currently offered by the team include 14 pro bono and volunteering schemes, designated careers and employment support, a professional placement year, a range of law skills and competitions and a growing international summer school scheme. This is all made possible by the goodwill and experience provided by a host of legal professionals who volunteer their time and provide their expertise for free.

During their 20 years their highlights include being the only UK university Innocence Project to overturn a miscarriage of justice at the Court of Appeal (they have overturned 2 cases), responding to the Ukraine conflict and setting up a scheme to help fleeing refugees with visas, winning a range of LawWorks Attorney General awards, and seeing their students representing Cardiff on the international skills competitions stage.

Professor Julie Price says, “We could not be celebrating our 20^th birthday without the help and experience of the legal and other professionals who support us year on year. We are also indebted to current and past colleagues for leading on activities that do not always attract the work allocation credit they merit. Some of our pro bono supporters are former Cardiff students themselves which is great to see. This has allowed us to build a diverse, evolving portfolio of opportunities for our students over the last 2 decades. Long may it continue! ”

Looking to the future, Co-Head of the team, Hannah Marchant, said, “While it’s amazing to look back at the last 20 years we also used this milestone to think about what we can achieve next. Historically, most of our activities have been extra-curricular, but we hope to embed more of our provision into the curriculum. We are firmly committed to employability skills being core to the student experience so let’s hope that can happen over the next few years.”

To find out more about the last 20 years of Pro Bono, Skills & Employability take a look through their new report. If you are a prospective student who’d like to find out more, our pro bono website  has a list of our current schemes.

Collage images (clockwise from top left)

• Students take part in a mock trial
• The Arts Partnership pro bono scheme
• A careers and employability fair
• Students at Hugh James offices in Cardiff
• Summer school students visiting Big Pit
• Students outside the Court of Appeal