The Law Society Charity donated £369,000 to good causes over the past year despite the recession, it announced today.

Its accounts for the 2008/09 financial year showed a 3.4% drop in grants made compared to the previous year.

The charity supports organisations including Reprieve, the Howard League, International Lawyers for Africa, LawCare and the Asylum Support Appeals Project.

This year it launched a fundraising drive to support the Law Society’s Diversity Access Scheme (DAS), which is designed to support promising entrants to the profession who face exceptional social, educational, financial or personal obstacles to qualification.

Legal representation, advice, pro bono, human rights and international initiatives and organisations have benefited from 33% of the charity’s total grants over the last five years.

Its chairman Nigel Dodds urged the profession to donate unclaimed client funds to the charity, once all efforts to reimburse the client had been exhausted, rather than allow them to gather dust.

Dodds said: ‘We realise that, for some law firms, donating to charity is not top of their list of priorities, especially when the economy is having an impact, which is why unclaimed client funds could be a way for firms which are keen to maintain or begin philanthropic endeavours to do so without using their own funds.’

‘The Law Society Charity remains committed to supporting a wide range of organisations and initiatives with a view to directly furthering law and justice, perhaps even more so during a recession. However, the charity does not have an endless supply of funds available to disburse.’

The Solicitors Regulation Authority approved an amendment to the Solicitors Account Rules last year, allowing balances of £50 or less of unclaimed funds per client to be released to charity without SRA approval.