Nigerian lawyer Yusuf Nurudeen has won the 2026 International Bar Association (IBA) Pro Bono Award for his sustained efforts to bridge the justice gap by mobilising 141 volunteer lawyers to provide free legal services to indigent and vulnerable people across 18 states.
Nurudeen, founder of the Foundation for Public Interest Law and Development, also known as The Pro Bono Centre, received the international honour on Thursday, 8 October, at the IBA’s annual awards breakfast in Copenhagen, Denmark.
His recognition places Nigeria among the countries whose legal practitioners have been honoured for using their professional expertise to advance access to justice, particularly for people who might otherwise be denied effective legal representation because of their financial circumstances.
The award was presented by Babatunde Ajibade (SAN), Chairman of the IBA Section on Public and Professional Interest (SPPI) for 2025–2026.
It recognises lawyers who show exceptional commitment to free legal services, develop innovative approaches to pro bono practice and make a meaningful impact on individuals, communities or the justice system.
Nurudeen dedicated the award to the 141 volunteer lawyers working through his organisation, describing their collective efforts as the real force behind the recognition.
He said the award was not a personal achievement but a tribute to lawyers who continue to give their time, knowledge and resources without expecting financial compensation.
Nurudeen’s recognition reflects the philosophy behind the IBA’s annual Pro Bono Award: access to justice should not depend on wealth, and lawyers have a responsibility to use their expertise to protect people who cannot afford their services.
The international body says its Pro Bono Committee seeks to foster a culture in which individual lawyers, law firms and legal organisations see free legal assistance as vital to advancing justice, particularly in jurisdictions where legal aid does not adequately meet public needs.
The award has previously recognised lawyers whose work combines direct legal assistance with efforts to establish sustainable structures for delivering justice.
Recent recipients include Singapore’s Arfat Selvam, who won the 2025 award after 17 years of leadership in the Law Society of Singapore’s pro bono initiatives; India’s Vineetha MG, honoured in 2024 for two decades of service to underserved communities; and Argentina’s María Fernanda Mierez, the 2023 recipient, recognised for two decades of pro bono work and initiatives to engage younger lawyers in legal aid.
Their work illustrates the award’s broader purpose: recognising not only individual acts of service but also sustained efforts to build systems that help more people obtain legal assistance.
For Nurudeen, that commitment is rooted in personal experience and an understanding of how the absence of legal representation can change a person’s life.
In his acceptance speech, he traced his passion for access to justice to his upbringing in Ikotun, Lagos, where he became the first lawyer in his family.
He reflected on how wrongful arrest and prolonged incarceration could have affected his family, saying his ambitions might have been cut short if his father had suffered the fate of two Nigerians whose cases he cited.
“If my father had been wrongfully arrested and incarcerated for thirteen years, like Igba Isaac, or eight years, like Pa Idowu Fashola, my dreams might have been cut short,” he said.
He explained that the reflection underscored how an injustice against one person can affect an entire family, depriving children of opportunities and disrupting dependents’ lives.
He identified among those most exposed to such injustices people detained because they cannot afford lawyers, women trapped in abusive marriages, children whose maintenance rights go unenforced, and families at risk of losing their homes or livelihoods because they cannot afford to pursue legal remedies
For such people, formal recognition of their legal rights may offer little protection if they lack the means to enforce them.
Nurudeen argued that the legal profession must confront this disparity rather than let poverty determine who receives a defence, whose grievances are heard and who can seek redress.
“Leaving these victims of our society’s inherent inequality helpless cannot be the promise of the legal profession,” he said.
“Our undertaking must be to ensure the law remains an instrument of justice, not a privilege reserved for wealth, power, or influence.”
Through The Pro Bono Centre, he has led a network of volunteer lawyers providing legal assistance to people who might otherwise be unable to secure representation.
The network’s presence in 18 states provides a platform to extend assistance beyond individual cases, bringing together practitioners ready to use their professional skills in the public interest.
Nurudeen said the award should renew the call to action, not conclude the work.
“I accept this award not as a declaration that our work is complete, but as a challenge to do more,” he said.
“It renews my commitment to resisting the commodification of justice and ensuring that poverty does not become a sentence of helplessness.”
The other recipients recognised at the Copenhagen ceremony were Charmaine Yap of Singapore, who received the IBA Outstanding Young Lawyer Award, and Zar Li Aye of Myanmar, honoured for outstanding contribution by a legal practitioner to human rights.
Yap was recognised for her professional and academic excellence and her commitment to using the law to advance justice for vulnerable communities. Li Aye was honoured for defending the rights of Myanmar’s Chin indigenous community and advocating for marginalised groups.
The three awards, presented at the SPPI breakfast during the IBA’s annual conference, highlighted different aspects of the legal profession’s public-interest responsibilities: expanding access to justice, nurturing professional excellence and defending human rights.
For Nurudeen and his network of volunteer lawyers, however, the immediate challenge remains turning the promise of legal rights into practical protection for people who lack the financial means to defend them.
He said pro bono service should be seen not merely as charity or an occasional professional gesture, but as an essential part of a justice system committed to fairness and equality before the law.
He said the recognition had strengthened his resolve to work towards a society where no one is too poor to be defended, too powerless to be heard or too marginalised to be protected.