The firm was split into rival teams - Team Claire (Clarke, managing partner) and Team Justin (Ripman, senior partner) - to win virtual kilometres by completing a number of different activities including snapping creative lockdown photos, solving sudokus and crosswords, and sweating by walking, running, exercise classes or cycling. The winning team would be whichever managed to virtually cover the distance between all six of the Mills & Reeve offices first.
SafeLives are dedicated to ending domestic abuse. Last year alone, nearly 11,000 professionals working on the frontline received their training. Over 65,000 adults at risk of serious harm or murder and more than 85,000 children received help through dedicated multi-agency support designed by SafeLives. In the last three years, over 1,000 perpetrators have been challenged and supported to change by interventions SafeLives created with partners.
Team Justin officially won the race to make it round the six Mills & Reeve offices first, covering 2,590.21km (the total of 61 marathons) although Team Claire did cover the most kilometres overall of 2,613.85 km. Over £9,000 has been raised for SafeLives from donations to their JustGiving page and a £4,000 donation from the Mills & Reeve Charitable Trust.
Justin Ripman, senior partner at Mills & Reeve says: “The team did a fantastic job of turning this year’s planned “real” challenge in the Peak District around so it could still go ahead virtually. I’ve loved seeing all the creative photos coming in, hearing that we have encouraged people to get out and exercise as well as the impressive sudoku and crossword scores!”
“SafeLives is a charity doing vital work, especially during the coronavirus pandemic and lockdown when, sadly, people have been more at risk. I was very pleased to see Team Justin ‘cross the line’ first of course but am very proud of all the effort that everyone has put into the challenge this year.”
Suzanne Jacob, CEO of SafeLives said: “Thank you so much for raising an incredible £9,000 for SafeLives! We hope you had a lot of fun for your Charity Challenge even if you missed each other now that many traditional activities aren’t for lockdown. We are so keen to work together with the legal sector to do all we can to keep survivors of domestic abuse, and their families, safe. Your support means an awful lot to us and please thank everyone at the firm for choosing to support SafeLives.”
Our content explained
Every piece of content we create is correct on the date it’s published but please don’t rely on it as legal advice. If you’d like to speak to us about your own legal requirements, please contact one of our expert lawyers.