Zambian innovation hub BongoHive has partnered TrustLaw, the Thomson Reuters Foundation’s global legal pro bono service, to make free legal services available to social impact startups.
TrustLaw is a community of more than 4,000 members, including 800 law firms and in-house legal teams, who bring the expertise of around 120,000 lawyers from around the world to over 3,800 NGOs and social enterprises.
The service connects NGOs and social enterprises creating social and environmental change around the world with leading law firms that take care of their legal needs completely free of charge.
Zambian startups being incubated at BongoHive will now be able to apply for free legal assistance in structuring their entities, employment agreements, global research on laws that may impact their businesses, partnership or funding agreements, intellectual property, and many more areas.
“Our partnership with TrustLaw will extend valuable legal support services to companies with social responsibility embedded in their mission. We are glad that we will help companies that have an additional positive impact on our society to gain this advantage through this partnership,” said Simunza Muyanga, BongoHive co-founder and head of entrepreneurship.
All organisations that apply for TrustLaw membership must have a clear mission that states who they aim to help, how they plan to do it, the impact they are trying to achieve, and how they will measure this impact. The criteria are broad to enable a variety of organisations to access the opportunity.
