Legal representation is prohibitively expensive. When someone is threatened with eviction, loses their job, or suffers domestic abuse—if they cannot access legal support—their right to justice hangs in the balance. We aim to rebalance the justice system and ensure it protects us all. The first £15,000 of this campaign is match funded, meaning that until 12:00pm on 6 December, your donation will be doubled at no extra cost!
Categories
Beneficiaries
When people seek help from Law Centres, their legal issues are often intertwined with non-legal problems. For example, threat of eviction can accompany personal debt problems, themselves caused by family breakdown. We need a Law Centre workforce that can solve both a client’s legal problems and the trigger causes that lie behind them. As the cost-of-living crisis deepens, demand is growing while fewer lawyers provide free legal assistance.
The funding gained from this campaign will enable Law Centres to extend an approach that frees up solicitors’ time and seeks to provide clients with long-term stability. In 2021, our Law Centres in Croydon and Ealing developed the role of Crisis Navigator, which focuses on helping clients address their non-legal issues, such as recovering wrongly denied benefits or accessing mental health support. Through this holistic approach, the Crisis Navigators have been able to create a more effective and enduring solution to the client’s problems, resolving the cyclical trigger issues causing their legal problems. The Law Centres Network is working to extend this proven scheme nationally.