Mourant in the community

At Mourant we have always taken our social responsibilities very seriously. As we have extended our international reach in recent years we have broadened the horizons of our corporate social responsibility programme. Here we give an overview of some of the ways in which we address our community responsibilities.

Jersey Legal Aid

As a jurisdiction, Jersey is unusual in providing no government funding for its legal aid service. Instead, all locally qualified lawyers provide a legal aid service free of charge (subject to client means) for the first fifteen years of their professional lives after qualification, and the legal profession as a body administers the scheme. As one of Jersey’s largest law firms, Mourant du Feu & Jeune services around 20% of the total number of legal aid certificates issued to clients in need each year. In 2005 this equalled some 400 cases, which were proudly serviced by our dedicated team of skilled specialists.

Mourant Swaziland Challenge (read more)

In 2003 Mourant teamed up with charity Hands Around The World to help people in Swaziland, an African country in the grip of poverty and an HIV epidemic. Teams of Mourant employees from several of our offices travelled to Swaziland in 2003 and 2005 to build new school facilities in remote areas of the country. The next Mourant team departs in May 2007, returning to Pigg’s Peak to build a community hall.

"Stepping up" in Guernsey

In 2006 we launched a new high profile art competition in Guernsey, where we provide both administration and legal services. Almost 300 entries were received for the scheme, which resulted in a public exhibition at Guernsey Airport of twelve shortlisted entries.

Charitable trusts

In the course of our business administering corporate structures for international financial transactions, we form and act as trustees to charitable trusts which are often the most appropriate type of holding vehicle for the special purpose companies involved in the transactions. As trustees, we frequently have to discharge our responsibility to distribute the income of such trusts at our discretion to deserving charitable causes.

In recent years we have distributed many millions of dollars of trust income to charities benefiting people in all corners of the world. Examples include:

Karin Dom: Founded in 1994, Karin Dom was the first Centre for Rehabilitation and Social Integration in Bulgaria. It has a multidisciplinary team of specialists working with, on average, 150 children and their families each year. It serves as a day centre for children with special needs who, prior to Karin Dom’s establishment, did not have access to any education. The centre provides a range of services, from picking the children up to go to school to specialised individual therapy - all free of charge to children with special needs. The trust’s £5,000 donation in September 2005 was put towards a minibus that will collect the children to go to Karin Dom and allow them to go on outings. To find out more about this organisation, visit: www.karindom.com
Friends of Ecce Homo Trusts - Outreach to Romania: The Trust’s £12,000 donation in March 2004 have been used to make up the short fall on two farming projects, one of which produces fruit and vegetables for the local community and fodder for their pigs and cows and the second project: farming pigs, to sell in the local markets, and cows to milk. The winters in Romania are harsh, daytime temperatures of -5°C mean roads ice over. The team of volunteers from Jersey took coats over for the cows in 2004, to keep the cows warmer in the winter so that they can use their energy to produce more milk - a small gesture that had the desired result. This charity supports and helps develop initiatives for the local people of Romania.
GOSH Appeal, Starfish and Jersey Hospice: Friends Nigel Strachan and Giles Corbin decided to swim from Jersey to France for charity in August 2004. They wanted to raise funds for three causes: the GOSH appeal, which was raising funds to build and equip an accommodation block for Channel Island families at Great Ormond Street Hospital; "Starfish", a South African AIDS charity which aims to mobilise and inspire individuals in their various fields of influence to bring life, hope and opportunity to orphaned children and their communities; and the Jersey Hospice which provides care of patients with advanced, progressive and incurable disease. The trust donated £15,000 to these three causes in June 2004.
Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust: In August 2006 the Amazon Trust, administered by Mourant, donated £221,000 to the world-famous Durrell organisation to support an innovative training programme being run by Durrell’s International Training Centre for professional conservationists in the Islands of the Pacific. The funding will enable experts from Durrell’s International Training Centre to run a three year programme of training courses specifically tailored to meet the needs of island conservationists, which will equip them with a comprehensive and effective conservation ’toolbox’ to help threatened island species recover from the brink of extinction.
Mustard Seed: Mustard Seed’s motto is "your help makes a difference" and their aim is to ease suffering in eastern Europe by providing opportunities that enable people to become self-sufficient. They achieve this through a group of volunteers from Jersey working with ten small different trusts in Romania, Moldova and Ukraine. Mustard Seed fund’s several educational projects including employing teachers and funding children’s education. The volunteers also take warm clothing and send food parcels to vulnerable families in eastern Europe. The highlight of the relief aid projects is the Christmas Shoeboxes which are put together by volunteers in Jersey, which typically of contain soap, gloves, socks and educational toys, and are delivered around Christmas time. The trust donated £12,000 in March 2004.

Community engagement

For many years Mourant has focused on the theme of "education" in selecting projects to sponsor and support in our home market, Jersey. In our aim of supporting local schools, we have provided sponsorship to a variety of projects, including drama productions, the purchase of musical instruments, an innovative internal electronic messaging system, and the production of annual admissions prospectuses. Since 1999 we have been sole corporate sponsor of the Institute of Directors’ Shadow Scheme, in which students are provided with the opportunity of work experience with the most senior members of Jersey’s business community. Read more about it here.

Supporting the charitable endeavours of our employees

Our employees in all our locations show a great commitment to charitable fund raising. We maintain a fund that supports their efforts, often by providing financial support for their participation in sponsored walks, runs, cycles, swims and other personal challenges. Charities that have benefited from their endeavours in the past five years include:

Cancer Research UK
Anthony Nolan Bone Marrow Trust
Great Ormond Street Hospital
Bush Hospital Foundation
Walk the Walk
Cheshire Home

An enterprising future

Enterprise matters to us at Mourant, and we firmly believe in the social benefits it can bring to communities. For 2007 and beyond, we are going to be focusing on the theme of "enterprise" in our community engagement projects, and we plan to establish a number of key relationships with non-profit organisations to support enterprise in the communities in which we operate.

Addressing our environmental impact

In 2006 a "green group" was established, sponsored by Chief Executive Nicola Davies, to investigate ways of reducing Mourant’s future impact on the environment, especially in view of the growing geographical reach of the business. At the end of the year the Board approved a range of initiatives recommended by the group, focusing on reductions in energy and paper consumption, and in 2007 these new policies will come into effect.