Green Pastures is a charity operating as a Christian Centre of Healing. The Centre offers assistance to those in need through various means such as prayer, reflexology, aromatherapy, support groups and general counselling. Late last year Green Pastures was offered an amazing gift, an 18th century 12 bedroom house. The house gave an unexpected and much welcomed opportunity for the charity to widen its services and offer much needed longer term residential places. However there was a problem, Green Pastures could not afford the conveyancing fees and seemed likely to lose this invaluable asset. Fortunately Green Pastures contacted the Solicitors’ Pro Bono group (SPBG). They were able to obtain the assistance of global law firm, Clifford Chance, who very kindly agreed to carry out the conveyancing o­n a no fee basis. In a letter from Andy Franklin at Green Pastures he thanked the SPBG and in praise of Clifford Chance stated: "As a charitable organisation with a limited budget it has been a very considerable boost to us to have access to this quality of legal service…".

Vikki Wiberg from Clifford Chance talks about the work she has been carrying out…
"Since September Peter Armstrong and I have worked o­n the flag-ship pro bono project referred to us by SPBG's LawWorks for Community Groups.  We have assisted with the transfer of a property in Dorset from a charitable trust (ACTS Trust) to our client, Green Pastures. Green Pastures intend to use the property to provide shelter and therapy to those in need such as homeless people, drug addicts and abused women regardless of their religious beliefs for periods of up to six months.

The property is unregistered and we have conducted searches and drafted transfer documentation. We have also prepared and negotiated a lease for the current owner to remain at the property after the transfer. I have spent much of my time researching the finer points of charity law and the quirks of unregistered conveyancing such as access and grazing rights - not issues you often encounter!

This project has been an invaluable learning experience, particularly for me as a trainee solicitor as I have been involved in daily communication with Green Pastures and other parties. The issues we have come across are not o­nes you often deal with in a big city firm and so it has greatly increased my knowledge. Clifford Chance are very supportive of pro bono work and encourage such projects to be undertaken. The expertise and support in such a large firm means that there is always someone with knowledge of issues you are looking into. It is inspiring to know that our assistance will help this charity increase their work for which there is a great demand in the local community."