Our Services
For Social Enterprises
We provide high quality pro bono legal support, leveraging the expertise of Prime Advocates and our partner law firms.
We support social enterprises to:
improve their internal structures
save money on legal costs
gain access to finances
scale their purpose-led businesses
For Law Firms
We provide law firms with tailored pro bono opportunities that meet their capacity needs and are skills-matched for their lawyers.
We remove onboarding inefficiencies to allow law firms to take on more cases
We support lawyers to work on social impact matters that they may not have the expertise to take on alone.
Areas of Support
We specialise in corporate and financial legal support: our law firm partners are world-leading experts in commercial law, and Prime Advocates is a multi-award winning law firm specialising in social finance.
Our expertise includes:
Equity Finance
Drafting investment documentation such as term sheets, investment agreements, investment readiness legal support, new articles, convertible note instruments, etc.
Capital Markets
Sustainable or impact capital markets issuance and product development (e.g. charity bond, Green/ Sustainability Bonds or sustainable/ ESG securitization etc.)
Debt Finance
Documenting and advising on bilateral / syndicated and other loans, including for acquisitions, leveraged buyouts, real estate and project and infrastructure financing.
Impact Investment Funds
Advising impact investors and intermediaries on the formation and investment into impact funds, joint ventures and downstream investments.
Energy & Infrastructure
Financing and investment documentation, including clean energy supply/client contracts, infrastructure development contracts, distribution agreements, emission reduction purchase agreements, etc.
Social Impact Bonds
Advising on structure and negotiating with stakeholders e.g. sponsors, investors, government bodies to determine the structure.
Preparing and negotiating outcomes contract ancillary documents e.g. government backed guarantees.
General Corporate
(Limited capacity)
Legal audit risk review.
General commercial work e.g. service agreements, governance support, NDAs, fee letters; amending legal structures / building social commitment into legal structures.
Charity Bonds
All documentation and negotiation involved in raising money on the bond market.
“The support from SFHD was amazing.
Listening to our needs as a company going through a fundraise and then contacting and setting up meetings with top-flight legal teams who actually wanted to help us was incredibly time-saving and confidence
building.”
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Prime Advocates, a registered non-profit law firm, manages the SFHD and acts as an intermediary between social enterprises and firms.
Both parties engage with Prime Advocates through the SFHD and benefit from our expertise and efficient query management process.
Prime Advocates acts as the law firm’s client, on-boarding and conducting due diligence on the enterprises, which removes inefficiencies for law firms.
Prime Advocates provides curated legal matters to partner firms based on the firm’s pro bono criteria, capacity and thematic focus.
Prime Advocates works with partner firms, inputting social finance and impact expertise, to deliver pro bono support to the social enterprises.
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To apply for pro bono support you must be a social enterprise with proof of concept and an asset or mission lock.
We define eligible entities as:
A for-profit company with a defined social or environmental mission (meaning a commitment to allocate a percentage of its profits and assets to its mission)
A non-for-profit company with 100% dividend lock
A Community Interest Company (CIC)
Only rarely do we accept very early stage businesses. Demonstrating the feasibility & viability of your business is essential.
Please also note that participating law firms may have their own eligibility criteria as well, which they will consider at the referral stage.
To apply for legal support, send an email to sfhd@primeadvocates.com and our team will provide you with an application form.
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It will usually take around 1-3 months to place a matter with one of our partner law firms. Response times vary based upon the nature of the legal query and we may not be able to place all matters (although this is rare).
SFHD sources queries that are not time-sensitive to ensure the most appropriate lawyers can take on the case. In most cases, urgent matters are not suitable for this service.
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We ensure social enterprises are placed with the firm and solicitor most suitable for their case. We discuss subject matters and practice areas in advance with the law firms to ensure that we are providing them with cases that suit their expertise.
We also remain sensitive to the capacity fluctuations of different teams in each law firm so we can ensure that the assigned team has enough time and resources to complete the matter to a high standard.