As a Law student who has had the opportunity to volunteer on a legal advice programme, the main thing I take away from it is not the legal experience I’ve had – as invaluable as it is – but seeing the law’s capability to be a force of social change. When I heard about the Legal Services Board’s Reshaping Legal Services Conference 2025, I knew I had to go to hear from professionals already fighting social injustice. I am barely into the realms of Legal Aid and access to justice, and yet I’ve already been facing a sector that, despite the undeniable passion of its members, feels jaded and beaten down.
The RSL conference illuminated the role the legal sector must assume to combat this, not relying on changing government funding, but developing a robust system, using our knowledge wealth and transgressing beyond the current system, if we are serious about improving access to justice. The particular focus of my thoughts following the conference are on the first panel, led by David Abbott, a member of the Legal Services Consumer Panel, which was titled ‘Community collaboration to improve access to justice’. The key message was highlighting the acute need for creative solutions to the problems of providing access to justice. Of these, significant ones are Legal Aid cuts and the Legal Aid gap (into which many fall who do not meet the strict statutory LASPO 2012 requirements, and must not be forgotten).
Before delving into discussion from the panel, I want to highlight the opening speech by Catherine Brown (LSB Interim Chair), and the weight she placed on culture shift across the legal sector. This is particularly evident for the conference’s other topics of equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) and professional ethics, with an emphasis on improving public trust. In both areas, the culture of professionals is a clear target, as professional attitudes create and aggravate these issues. In the area of access to justice, the importance of a culture shift is less glaring. However, it is no less important. Aside from the creeping notion that those working on the front lines of access to justice are fighting a losing battle, there is a feeling of stagnation. This is unsurprising given the amount of energy and resources being put into keeping the sector afloat, but this is the culture that needs to be shifted. We need such a shift to be able to adopt the creative methods the panel was concerned with.
On the panel, two particular examples of solutions to problems of providing access to justice stood out to me. The first was discussed by Dan Hopewell, Director of Knowledge and Innovation at Bromley by Bow Health Partnership. His work involves collaboration between GPs and providers of legal advice, and a shift to understand access to justice as an integral part of holistic social care. This involves medical practitioners being trained to ask targeted questions to detect and recognise underlying legal problems. Legal advice can then be worked into our provision of healthcare, leading to early intervention and prevention. A key issue faced by many social welfare advice providers is clients coming late along a legal problem, at a time where the advice is not only more urgent, but the issue is significantly more complicated. As the panel highlighted, many of those with legal problems do not realise they are such. Frankly, if someone does not know their issues are legal, they cannot seek out appropriate help. Hopewell’s work targets access to justice through early intervention, but also in pushing for legal issues to be seen as serious and necessitating similar levels of attention to health concerns. Not only are many clients more aware of the provision of health services currently, but having an underlying legal issue is likely to have physical and mental health ramifications. Working in a legal clinic for less than a year, this link is already painfully apparent.
Therefore, not only will such collaboration benefit access to justice, but take some pressure off of healthcare services if the root of such health issues can be targeted. Importantly, it allows care to be viewed as a package deal; care does not need to be divided strictly, and will likely be more efficient and client-oriented if it is not. The second solution from the panel which I wish to discuss was raised by Laura Pinkney, head of NLS Legal at Nottingham Law School, Nottingham Trent University. NLS Legal is a law firm integrated into and owned by the law school. This is indeed a creative solution to the issue faced by many law schools in finding solicitors to supervise student training and work. It also overcomes the challenges of having to outsource and enter contracts with existing law firms, where student capacity is likely to fluctuate based on the firm’s situation and availability of Legal Aid funding. Additionally, Pinkney’s description revealed an organisation with highly-integrated student work, leading unquestionably to better training and client support.
One fear I face as a student volunteer is being a burden as opposed to a help to the legal clinics of which I am a part; we want to increase capacity for the qualified solicitors to undertake the tasks which we are unable to, not take them away from helping clients. NLS Legal illustrates a culture shift from student involvement being for training purposes to maximising the help they can offer the community. If we are looking for low-cost solutions to provide access to justice, law schools should indeed be able to offer part of a solution, if such integration can be adopted by other programmes. In a similar vein to Hopewell’s work, there is scope for collaboration within organisations within the legal sphere. Particularly links with local councils who are in a position to identify and refer clients in need of social welfare legal advice to community-based providers. A common push-back against this idea has often been that, particularly in the context of housing, local authorities are the ‘opposition’. Of course, in the legal world, we are dealing in disputes, and so local authorities are often the opposition to the client. Further, we should be attentive to potential feelings of apprehension from clients were there to be such a collaboration. This is pertinent in relation to those who have had previous dealings with local authority or, in the context of asylum claims, Home Office officials without support. Such is to be expected when someone is coming into contact with a system of which they have little knowledge, and dealing with officials who undoubtedly have more experience with the system is daunting.
Being sensitive to the challenges faced by clients is key to meaningfully being able to help them. As a speaker later in the day, Olive Craig, Legal Officer at Rights of Women, noted, when working with vulnerable clients we must adopt a trauma-informed approach. To adhere to this, any collaborations we undertake must be carefully thought out so as to provide clients with support workers they can build trust with, and understand are working for their interests. Ultimately, though, we must shift from dichotomies of opposition and collaborate with organisations who have the knowledge that we need in order to identify vulnerable members of society who are unaware of the help available. The next element of culture shift is certainly underway, but that is not to say there is not a long way to go. Attending the conference was not only valuable to meet those within the profession, but to meet many other students similarly passionate about reshaping our legal services. What was stark from each of our experiences was how diverse they were; volunteering with legal centres and engaging in access to justice takes many forms, even within the same city or university.
We are all working towards the same goal: achieving social change through access to justice. Only, currently it feels disparate. While there are successful charities working to connect and share resources between legal advice organisations (Law Works, the Law Centres Network and the Clinical Legal Education Organisation to name a few), the last culture shift I feel is desirable is one of partnership. There is power and great value in our community based programmes, which we must preserve, but we must also collaborate to make larger-scale change. There is only so much we can do in our respective pockets, and we would be undoubtedly better off more efficiently sharing resources and knowledge. If we don’t, we risk a postcode lottery of accessible legal advice.
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