Supporting lawyers in 2024

High quality specialist legal representation is more important than ever. Freedom of expression is declining globally and journalists and activists face both new and well-known threats. Our Lawyer Impact Survey can help us understand some ways that we improve our work at Media Defence.

Broadening our geographic outreach

Only, 7% of our respondents on our lawyer impact survey were from the Asia-Pacific region. The proportion of cases we receive from the region in 2023 was also small. There are serious restrictions on freedom of expression in the region. Recognising this, we are planning for future networking activities in the region. Combined with our litigation surgery in 2023, we hope this will strengthen our outreach and lawyer networks, and subsequently open opportunities for us to support more lawyers in this region.

Improving our gender and diversity inclusion and representation

We understand that there are gender-based challenges for women lawyers and women journalists. Our work in sub-Sahara Africa has piloted women-only spaces, holding networking events and litigation surgeries for women lawyers across the region. Nevertheless, we can make improvements to actively ensure a more diverse collection of voices are heard and represented in our evaluation activities so that we have a better understanding of our impact.

Tracing unexpected outcomes

Our Lawyer Impact Survey showed that Media Defence’s legal and financial support can have a wider impact. As part of our ongoing Monitoring and Evaluation practices, we try to capture these in different ways. However, we can explore different ways to increase our understanding of unexpected and unintended outcomes that are linked to our support.

More information can be found here.