Drop-In Legal Advice Clinic: Accessible Legal Assistance in London

1. CLINIC, CILEX & T4T Alan Russell Catherine Evans Andy Unger London South Bank University

3. CONTEXT • A widening participation institution • 25% UG law students live locally in south & east London • 57% women • 65% over 21 • 70% non-white • 52% in paid employment (80% working 9 hours plus) • 17% caring for at least one school age child

4. CONTEXT Students unlikely to have links to the legal professions • Fair Access to Professional Careers, A progress report by the Independent Reviewer on Social Mobility and Child Poverty (Milburn, 2012, Cabinet Office Report)

5. CONTEXT • University tuition fees - £9,000 PA • ABS – Legal Services Act 2007 • Information technology • Paralegals • Fewer training contracts and pupillages

6. CONTEXT • ‘Working in the Law’ • Compulsory Year 2 undergraduate Law module • Professional & career skills • External legal work placement opportunities

7. CONTEXT

8. CONTEXT • Clustering • Early intervention • Impact on health and wellbeing • ‘Referral fatigue’

9. CONTEXT • Genn, H. (1999) Paths to Justice: What People Do And Think About Going To Law. Oxford: Hart Publishing; • Balmer, N. (2013) Summary Findings of Wave 2 of the English and Welsh Civil and Social Justice Panel Survey, Legal Services Commission; • Pleasance, P. & Balmer, N. (2014) How People Resolve ‘Legal’ Problems: Report to the Legal Services Board

10. CONTEXT • Southwark ranked 23rd most deprived out of 326 local districts in England (DCLG 2015) • Demand for SWL advice enormous • Supply very limited

11. CONTEXT • Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act (LASPO) 2012 • £320 million savings PA • Legal Help Scheme slashed • Welfare benefits, debt, employment, education, immigration advice out of scope • Housing and family advice severely restricted

12. DROP IN SOCIAL WELFARE LAW ADVICE • Drop-in face to face social welfare law advice • Drop-in 3 x 3 hours a week • Staffed by students; supervised by university employed solicitors • Minimum 12 week placement • 18-20 clients a week

14. STUDENT PROGRESSIONAT DAYTIME DROP-IN

15. EVENING SESSIONS Students shadow pro bono solicitors & barristers giving specialist legal advice in • Housing • Family • Employment

16. CLIENT OUTPUTS

17. CLIENT OUTPUTS

18. CLIENT OUTPUTS

19. BENEFIT TO STUDENTS • In at the deep end – first point of contact • Translating client concerns into legally recognisable categories • Developing interview skills • Developing practical legal knowledge • Developing understanding of client care • Developing writing skills – the advice record

20. Drop-in Legal Advice Clinic Director’s Manual 1st Edition

21. COUNTY COURT HELPDESK • Lambeth County Court Helpdesk • Replacing the former court office service • 35 new placements since Sep 2013

23. CILEX • CILEx accreditation embedded • Civil & criminal litigation; family law; employment law; company & business law • Fully qualified Legal Executive after 3 years paralegal work

24. CILEX • Legal Executives can double qualify as solicitors by passing the LPC – no training contract required • Challenge – meeting Level 6 LLB outcomes and covering packed CILEx syllabus

25. SRA Training for Tomorrow Threats & Opportunities

26. Option 1 Continuing to prescribe a limited number of pathways to qualification, the details of which we specify, which are aligned to the Statement of Solicitor Competence, Statement of Legal Knowledge and Threshold Standard.

27. Option 2 Rather than prescribing a limited number of pathways, authorising any training pathway developed by a training provider which enables a candidate to demonstrate they can perform the activities set out in the Statement of Solicitor Competence to the standard required in the Threshold Standard.

28. Option 3 Developing a centralised assessment of competence that all candidates are required to undertake prior to qualification, again aligned to the Statement of Solicitor Competence, Statement of Legal Knowledge and Threshold Standard.

29. Training for Yesterday The proposals ignore specialisms, IT, ABS and burgeoning new roles for lawyers

30. Equal Opportunities Threats • A two-track or double track system and a significant rise in assessment costs - SQE Part 1 & 2 • Unlimited amount of resits for those who can afford it

31. Equal Opportunities Threats • some students will seek to minimise the costs of qualifying by taking unregulated crammer courses instead of academically rigorous alternatives to the current LLB + LPC - may be less well prepared to pass and to practice as Solicitors. • Those who can afford to do so will take both.

32. Narrowing Student Choice • Divergence between the BSB and the SRA will mean students have to decide their career routes before they have even begun the study of law

33. Academic Threats • teaching to the SQE Part 1, will make it almost impossible to teach options or to teach and assess the wider academic and skills outcomes outlined in the QAA Subject Benchmark Statement for Law.

34. Quality Threats • Not fit for purpose – assesses knowledge and general legal skills but not higher order, critical thinking skills or the ability to respond with unprompted complex information

35. Reputation Threats • The Law Society and the City Law Firms amongst others have expressed concerns about damage to the international reputation of the Solicitors profession if it is perceived to no longer be a graduate profession.

36. Opportunities ? • Hoping for Option 2

37. Opportunities ? Can we blend an extension of clinic and collaboration with local partners (in our case SLLS and SLAN) with new and existing courses (LLB, LLM, LPC) to take our students closer to professional qualification ?

38. CONTACTS alan.russell@lsbu.ac.uk evansc15@lsbu.ac.uk ungerad@lsbu.ac.uk www.lsbu.ac.uk/legaladviceclinic