I had the pleasure of being invited as a VIP guest speaker to the Thrive Business Breakfast Exclusive Event: Corporate Social Responsibility this morning at The Royal Scots Club in Edinburgh. It was an early start on a very wet morning for me to get to Edinburgh from Glasgow for 8am. After breakfast each delegate had 1 minute to introduce themselves around the table with me and the other two VIP speakers then having 8 minutes to talk about Corporate Social Responsibility.

I explained (in more than 8 minutes!) how through Inksters I had been able to promote our charity work in Argentina in a way that would not otherwise have been possible. This had resulted in corporate sponsorship, individual donations and raised awareness on a scale that benefitted both Inksters and Habitat for Humanity. I showed the delegates an InkstersGive T-Shirt and gave them all a booklet to take away on our Global Village Challenge.

The other two Guest speakers, Dr Michael Groves (Managing Director of Great Circle) and Andrew Mason (Group Sustainability Manager at Royal Bank of Scotland) spoke on sustainability.

It was great to be able to bring our work in Argentina to the attention of a diverse group of businesses and charities in Edinburgh. I made my way back to Glasgow in the knowledge that the very early start to the day had been well worth it.

Inksters Solicitors have been nominated for Corporate Social Responsibility Firm of the Year at the Law Awards of Scotland 2010. This is in respect of Inksters' support of Habitat for Humanity and the Global Village Challenge in Argentina which you can, of course, read all about on this blog and at the main InkstersGive website.

The Law Awards of Scotland recognises and rewards the very best legal firms and celebrates those who have shown outstanding performance in their field.

The Law Awards of Scotland undertake a rigorous research process in order to identify who are the top law firms in Scotland. Inksters' recently achieved that by becoming a Recommended Law Firm 2010 and have now gone on to receive not only this nomination, for Corporate Social Responsibility Firm of the Year, but also for Marketing Team of the Year.

The winners will be revealed at The Law Awards of Scotland awards ceremony to be held on Thursday 16th September 2010 at The Hilton Hotel, Glasgow. For the full list of nominations see: The Law Awards of Scotland: 2010 Finalists

The title of this blog post is taken from the Tweet today by Kristof Zoltan von Csefalvay-Bartal (@chrisvcb) who tweeted: "look at the flashy t-shirt I have!": And here is the image from Cardiff that accompanied the tweet:-

Chris is a "Lawyer, geek, superhero, survivor. Currently going to jail so you don't have to".

Follow Chris on Twitter: @chrisvcb

One of our Corporate Sponsors, Tom Valenti of ValentiLaw, wearing his InkstersGive T-Shirt in Chicago.

Tom recently returned from a trip to Haiti where he went to assess the need for conflict management skills after the early responders have left and there is a lull in activity. As a result of this visit Tom intends to train Haitians in mediation, facilitation, advocacy, dialogue and in training itself. He and Alan Gross (a NY & PA mediator, trainer and facilitator who has worked all over the world) are taking steps to start a program to train Haitian lawyers in mediation to work on the  existing 7 – 10 year backlog of cases in the Haitian judicial system. This can eventually include the development of community mediation centers to handle disputes at a local level by people from the community. They hope to work with existing NGOs to start peer mediation training in the schools, which in many respects need a fresh look at how to get kids into school; how to keep kids in school and how to treat kids while there. They hope to empower Haitians to be able to advocate for themselves so that from the rubble and chaos, there arises a new Haiti that provides the Haitians with a home; an education; a job; and a country in which they have pride.

Read more: Mediators as early responders – follow up and a discussion of a recent trip to Haiti

Follow Tom Valenti on Twitter: @ValentiLaw and @ChicagoMediator

Michael Scutt's (aka Jobsworth) latest UK Blawg Round Up #3 is on the topic of Midsummer Madness. He includes the Inksters Give Blog in this and, in particular, Scott Greenfield wearing his Inksters Give T-Shirt. This results in Scott Greenfield's blog, Simple Justice, and his post on You're Not Atticus Finch (and neither am I) being the first non UK blog to be mentioned in a UK Blawg Round Up. The benefits of wearing an Inksters Give T-Shirt knows no bounds!

Michael Scutt kindly bought an Inksters Give T-Shirt but states in Midsummer Madness that "modesty prevents me from posting a photo of my gym-honed torso on this blog". With a little bit of persuasion and a competition between Michael, Valentilaw and Chris v C-B we can now exclusively reveal that gym-honed torso on the Inksters Give Blog:-

Midsummer Madness!

Antalia's (@Antalianna) two daughters are the first UK supporters of InkstersGive to provide us with a photo of them in their T-Shirts.

Follow Antalia on Twitter

Corporate Sponsor, The Trial Warrior (aka Antonin Pribetic), and his nephew, Daniel, proudly wear their InkstersGive Habitat for Humanity T-Shirts in Toronto.

Read the excellent The Trial Warrior Blog

The mail has arrived in New York and Scott Greenfield is wearing his InkstersGive T-Shirt

Read Scott Greenfield's blog at Simple Justice

The T-Shirts have been printed and today they were posted within the UK and to as far afield as Canada and the USA.

One recipient who has been waiting patiently by his mailbox is American Attorney, Blawger and Social Media Ninja, Scott Greenfield. Scott spends a lot of time by his mailbox waiting for Key Lime Pie and iPods. Corporate Sponsor, The Trial Warrior, kindly donated one of his T-Shirts to Scott and as this was posted to New York today the wait by the mailbox should not be for much longer. The T-Shirt will, of course, more than compensate Scott for missing out on the Grand Prize that Adrian Dayton won from the Lexis Nexis booth at the Inside Counsel Superconference.

Perhaps Scott will provide us with a photo of him by his mailbox wearing the T-Shirt for a future blog post.

InkstersGive recommends you take a look at Scott's blog at Simple Justice. It makes for a very good read and not just for lawyers.

The T-Shirt (an updated version of the original one) now contains the logos of all 12 Corporate Sponsors: Inksters, Page \ Park, Innovation Digital, The Trial Warrior, Harley Haddow, Theatreplan, Silverman Sherliker, Valentilaw, Barr Brady, Océ, Jeffrey Aitken and Armitage Associates.

The profits from the sale of the T-Shirts amounts to £83.01 which will go to Habitat for Humanity to help the residents of 22 de Enero in La Matanza build a better future.

Thanks to everyone who bought the T-Shirt and have helped make a difference.

If you have not donated yet but would like to then please visit and donate at JustGiving. It would be nice to reach the £7,000 mark - we are nearly there.

Orders are still coming in for our T-Shirts. But we must now print them and fulfil our orders. So this is your last chance to order the T-Shirt. Orders will close on 1st May 2010. Don't delay order today. For full details on how to order see our earlier post on Buy the T-Shirt. We shall then ship all orders by the end of May so that you have your T-Shirts in time for the Summer.