Lorna Gavin

Head of Corporate Responsibility - pro bono, community work and environmental initiatives. In conjunction with our HR team, I also work on projects supporting our people and liaise with clients, suppliers and community partners with the aim of increasing the reach of our own CR activities.

Tel: +44 (0)870 733 0572

Email: lorna_gavin@wragge.com

Highlight of your career so far?

It's a cliche that everything we do makes a difference - but it's true! If I had to pick the instance that gives me the most pride and is the most humbling at the same time, it's playing a very small part in turning around the life of a homeless person called Eddie. He was a shepherd who had been homeless since the 2002 foot-and-mouth disease outbreak. We encountered Eddie shortly after he'd come off the streets when we hosted a two day course for about 16 homeless people, designed to give them interview skills as they embarked on applications for work placements. Eddie was a star and even though we only did small practical things on the day, like getting one of our secretaries to type up his CV, we kept in touch and we carried on giving him support and encouragement. He did really well on his work placements around the City and now has a full-time job and is studying for a law degree in the evenings.

We were only one of a number of organisations that worked with Eddie, but it was enormously uplifting to get an email from him the day after his first lecture at university, looking back at the fact that he had been sleeping rough on the streets only a year before and thanking us for helping to inspire him along the way.

Most challenging job you've ever done?

I don't know if I'd describe it as toughest, more of an ongoing challenge - encouraging people to change their behaviours to support our various environmental initiatives. It's basic things like switching monitors off at night and different ways to reduce the amount of paper we're using. We run competitions with eco-friendly prizes to help raise awareness of why it's important to do things differently. We've got a list of new initiatives planned to help with the 'push' - a stationery amnesty in the new year is a good example. A major challenge is keeping up with the flow of emails and calls from people in the business who want to get more involved in our community programmes, or who have 'bright ideas' for ways we can improve things, like our recycling. It's great to know that people are engaging with the initiatives and we've had some great suggestions which we've then gone on to implement - such as removing plastic spoons from our kitchens. A nice challenge to have!

What's your definition of going the extra mile

I think going the extra mile in the world of corporate responsibility is going beyond the 'quick fixes' and building long-term relationships with charities and other community organisations that we've helped. We still provide support to a hostel for homeless people. That was our Charity of the Year in 2005. Whether it's pro bono, getting materials printed or helping them with IT issues. We helped out a primary school in Bethnal Green in the summer as part of London Better Together Day and rather than 'dipping in' for one day a year and forgetting about them for the next 364 days, we keep the relationship going. We're currently planning a visit for some of its pupils to come into our office to learn about what sort of work we do.

What's your single greatest contribution to Wragge & Co's corporate responsibility?

Tricky one, as it's my day job! A lot of what I do is about enabling other people to go out and make contributions. I call them 'my heroes' (corny but true).