This year marks the 12th Asia Pro Bono Conference (12APBC) in Cebu City, Philippines, from December 1st to 3rd, 2023. The 12APBC will host a variety of diverse sessions, interactive workshops and presentations led by experienced local, regional, and international participants engaged in supporting and strengthening pro bono initiatives.

In addition to the APBC, the Access to Justice Exchange (“A2J Exchange”) is a series of workshops, forums, and roundtables held before and after the 12APBC from November 27th to 30th and December 4th to 7th, 2023. The A2J Exchange offers opportunities for conference participants to attend pro bono-related workshops and other events taking place in the Cebu City area and virtually via Zoom. These events vary in thematic focus and in participant groups involved.

Since its inception in the Laos PDR in 2012, the APBC has grown to become the largest annual gathering of individuals supporting or engaged in access to justice, pro bono, and public interest law in Asia. This milestone event emphasizes and celebrates pro bono legal work conducted across Asia and around the world. The APBC’s simple and powerful purpose is to promote and further a shared pro bono ethos in and beyond Asia. This annual event provides a key opportunity for a diverse array of stakeholders, such as lawyers, paralegals, academics, law students, jurists, members of civil society, governmental policymakers, and representatives of non-profit and for-profit organizations, to develop, explore and share pro bono initiatives and projects that strengthen access to justice both in Asia and in other regions of the world.

The APBC’s philosophy is unique in that it aims not to support the annual event itself, but rather the ever-strengthening Asia Pro Bono Movement and the Global Pro Bono Movement more broadly, beginning with the selection of a different country and local partners to host the APBC events each year. The APBC is designed primarily as an opportunity for cross-stakeholder engagement, enabling participants to share experiences and to report on longstanding pro bono initiatives as well as on those initiatives that have developed since the previous annual conference. In this way, the APBC speaks of both the challenges and successes of the past as well as the vast potential of new strategies and collaboration to drive the future development of pro bono legal culture across Asia.