Tony Martin, Head of Clinics at BPP Pro Bono Centre, looks at some new partnerships
Many of our projects at BPP are run in partnership with other organisations. In clinics, these include city law firms, a local authority legal team, Law Centres® and other not for profit organisations. This enables us to deliver more advice and exposes our students to a range of lawyers, who work in different ways. For our partners it provides access to motivated clever students, training and varying degrees of administrative support. We have recently embarked on three new partnerships in London.
Monday 2nd December sees the launch of the Free Employment Law Advice clinic at Nucleus Legal Advice Centre in Earls Court. Nucleus has strong links to the local community, serving an area of high need (amongst the 20% most deprived wards in the UK) and has been doing so since 1974!.
BPP law students will work with lawyers from Nucleus to provide the advice, although Nucleus are looking for external lawyers to volunteer in the clinic (if that is you please get in touch). The clinic will run on Monday evenings by appointment and it is part of the LawWorks clinics network. All advice is free. Appointments can be arranged by ‘phone: 020 7373 4005.
In the new year we will add a further service to our existing Family Law Clinic. In partnership with FLOWS, which is delivered by the Family Legal Team of RCJ Advice, in partnership with Rights of Women, this will provide the ability for us to assist people needing to obtain injunctions such as NonMolestation and/or Occupation orders. More details will be available soon.
Also in the new year, we are launching our school exclusion project to provide advice and representation to young people who are facing or who have experienced exclusion from school. We will be working in partnership with Just for Kids Law, which is a charity that helps young people who need support or advice, if they need a lawyer, or if their voice is not being heard. The school exclusions project is a result of a partnership between Just for Kids Law and Fieldfisher Solicitors. The aim is to ensure that more of the 7,700 pupils permanently excluded and 410,800 temporarily excluded from school in England can be advised and represented.
Partnerships like these hugely increase the amount of pro bono advice and assistance that can be provided, as well as minimising duplication of services. For more information on these or any of our projects please get in touch: probono@bpp.com
