We believe that it is important that we have a positive impact on the communities where we work through volunteering and supporting community initiatives; by supporting projects helping those most in need; by using our skills and expertise to promote access to justice and improve our laws and legal system, and by conducting our business in an environmentally responsible and sustainable manner.

Accordingly the firm contributes with the knowledge, skills and time of its people in supporting different projects and organisations some of which are detailed below.

Early Learning Initiative

We work with the Early Learning Initiative – a community-based educational initiative - aimed at addressing educational disadvantage through the provision of an integrated programme for children, their parents and families, and educators from early years up to third level.

Free Legal Advice Centres

The firm’s pro bono work is divided into involvement by individual lawyers with organisations that provide legal advice to the public, principally the Free Legal Advice Centres (FLAC), and provision by the firm of legal services on a pro bono basis, principally through the Public Interest Law Alliance (PILA). Our large number of FLAC volunteers staff a busy city centre legal advice clinic which provides legal advice and assistance to clients whose means make it difficult for them to secure professional legal advice.

Ozanam House

We support Ozanam House, a community resource centre based on Mountjoy Square in the north inner city and operated by the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul. The centre provides various educational, community, youth and childcare programmes that are aimed at addressing social exclusion in Dublin’s inner city.

Public Interest Law Alliance

As a ‘Sustaining Partner’ of PILA we are proud to support their work by offering our services on a pro bono basis to not for profit organisations. As well as supporting a number of different initiatives and organisations throughout 2016 we have most recently committed to work with Women’s Aid which provides support to women experiencing domestic violence.

Trinity Access Programme

The Trinity Access Programmes (TAP) forms a central part of Trinity College Dublin’s plan to encourage young adults, adults and ethnic minority students who come from socio-economic groups under-represented in higher education, to go to university. We are proud to partner with TAP to help provide a range of access programmes that widen access and participation at third-level.

North East Inner City (NEIC)

In July 2016 the Taoiseach at the time, Enda Kenny T.D., launched a major initiative on the development of the North East Inner City. In summary, the NEIC Programme Implementation Board (NEIC PIB) focus is across 5 key areas: crime and drugs, education, training and employment, integrated service delivery, physical landscape and addiction. To achieve the objectives a wide range of initiatives from additional Gardaí, sporting events, training programmes and community based festivals have been initiated and are ongoing. McCann FitzGerald supports a number of these initiatives, the full range of which can be seen at the NEIC website.

Environmental Strategy

We have taken a number of significant steps in terms of managing our environmental responsibilities and reducing the energy we use. Since 2006, we have continued to have our carbon footprint assessed on a regular basis and following each assessment we have maintained a carbon neutral status by offsetting our carbon emissions through approved United Nations schemes.

We were the first Irish law firm to become ‘carbon neutral’. We regularly review our energy consumption to identify trends in our power use and this allows us to focus on areas that might be contributing to excessive power consumption including minimising waste, promoting recycling, raising awareness of environmental issues and consistently looking at ways where we reduce our emissions.

Our partners