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| Vol 5 Issue 7 | |
| September 2009 |
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On the staffing front, this month we are saying a very sad goodbye to Justin McClintock and Rachel Robertson. Justin came as a Howrey intern last June and simply never got round to leaving. He is leaving to take up a pupilage at 25 Bedford Row. Rachel has been a familiar face at LawWorks for a long time, having worked in a range of different projects, most recently starting up the Choices project. She is leaving to work in adoption services in Brighton. At the same time, Kristina Velcikova will start working part time only, to enable her to study for an LLM at King’s College. She will be working with Lavinia on mediation casework. The response to our recruitment process was extraordinary in the number and calibre of applicants, and we look forward to welcoming Tim Atwood (Individual Casework) and Lorna Heselton (Choices and ALLIES). They have some very hard acts to follow. I wish Justin, Rachel and Kristina every success in their new endeavours and thank them for all they have done. All of which leaves me no room at all to mention the successful Forum meeting at Slaughter and May in July (discussions on mediation and the survey results, soon to be published), or the overwhelming response to the launch in July of Choices (over 300 applicants, 11 firms signed up to the Guaranteed Interview Scheme) – but more of this soon. We would be delighted to speak to any firms interested in signing up to the GIS. I hope everyone had a wonderful summer and that the sun shone on you all. I look forward to catching up with you all soon. Rebecca Hilsenrath
9 November @ Friends House, London For more information and to register please visit www.spbg.org.uk/conference09
If you are able to attend, please contact Anne Monk.
It is estimated that some 10,000 City lawyers could be made redundant as part of the recession. This is the first initiative of its kind in which a sector is combating the downturn by helping ex-employees do work for the common good. Some major law firms (most of which are LawWorks members) have offered guaranteed interviews to appropriately qualified candidates who have completed a minimum of 40 hours pro bono work through the project. If your firm is interested in finding out more about the Guaranteed Interview Scheme please contact us at choices@lawworks.org.uk and we will be delighted to discuss it with you further. Firms already participating in the scheme are:
*This firm is a LawWorks Member firm The Law Society and the Solicitors’ Regulation Authority will provide a practising certificate limited to pro bono work free of charge to legally qualified participants volunteering under this project. Participants in the Choices Project will need to be members of LawWorks. Benefits of this membership include:
The scheme has been hugely popular with over 350 solicitors having registered to date – a sad indictment of the need for this project. Volunteers will be working in teams for not for profit organisations who are in need of legal assistance. As the recession has taken its toll on both the users and service providers within the voluntary sector we anticipate that there will be no shortage of pro bono opportunities for our volunteers. If you are aware of a not for profit organisation or community group that is in need of legal assistance then please do contact us at choices@lawworks.org.uk and we will be delighted to see whether we can assist them in finding the help they require. Although the administration involved in gaining insurance and practising certificates for volunteers has proved demanding, LawWorks has risen to the challenge and we are making great progress. We now have over 50 solicitors ready and able to start their pro bono work which will be of great benefit to individuals and not for profits in need of legal advice!
LexisNexis is supporting out of work lawyers by giving them free access to online training courses and its legal information service LexisPSL. By joining the Legal Intelligence Network, lawyers can stay up to date on legal developments and maintain their CPD points. There are obvious synergies between this initiative and LawWorks Choices, which gives out of work lawyers the chance to do pro bono work and potentially secure a guaranteed job interview with a major law firm (www.lawworkschoices.org.uk). LexisNexis has a long standing relationship with LawWorks, making online information available free of charge to LawWorks law clinics. LexisNexis welcomes the partnership between LawWorks Choices and the Legal Intelligence Network, and would encourage out of work lawyers to sign up to both schemes. LexisNexis is hosting a CPD seminar for Legal Intelligence Network members in London on 23 September 2009 at Macfarlanes solicitors, covering legal developments that impact across a range of practice areas such as climate change regulation and the Companies Act 2006. The event, free of charge to all Network members, will also be an opportunity for members to meet one another and the LexisPSL lawyer team. Lawyers wanting to join the Network and get free access to online services will need to be recommended by one of our recruitment partners, gmk or Lipson-Lloyd Jones. More information is available at www.lexisnexis.co.uk/legalintelligence/LI-network. Alex Dumbrell, Head of KnowHow, LexisNexis
You will see that four new CPD accredited training sessions have been included in the training programme, starting on Friday, 18th September 2009 with Charity Law Overview, Employment – Redundancy, and a new Debt Advice session split into two sessions: Part 1 & Part 2 and Consumer Contracts. We hope you will find the programme interesting and useful and we look forward to seeing you at the sessions and receiving your feedback. To view all the training sessions on offer and to reserve your place, please click here. Please note, the registration process is on a first come first served basis and therefore we would kindly ask you to log in (if you are already a user on our training database) or register (if you are a new user) on our website. How to Register/Log In:-
In early 2007 he renewed his demands to Mrs A, so LawWorks contacted him and again suggested a free mediation in March 2007. Once more he agreed in theory, only to pull out before the mediation took place. Mrs A was anxious to bring the matter to a head as she had been subject to this annual demand from him for some years and did not want to leave the matter for her daughter to have to deal with in due course. Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer kindly agreed to take her on as a pro bono client and their team devoted over 140 hours of pro bono time to her case. They finally represented her at a hearing of the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal (“LVT”) in April 2009 where a satisfactory conclusion was achieved to her case.
Mrs A said “The successful outcome is almost entirely due to the legal help and support I received from LawWorks under the pro bono scheme and I would like to thank you again for your excellent work…particularly after my freeholder refused to co-operate twice for mediation at the last minute.” She said of the Freshfields team, “they worked thoroughly on my case and knew every detail…and were instrumental in determining to force my freeholder to bring my case to the LVT after so many years of procrastination. Thank you for your help in achieving this very positive outcome.”
The scheme operates out of HMP Forrest Bank Visitor Centre where meetings take place with the client in person, but facilities will also be available at MMU where clients who cannot attend the Centre or MMU they can be interviewed over the phone. The scheme involves two students being assigned to each set of instructions with one taking the lead. No advice is given at the initial meeting, whether in person or over the phone. The aim is to provide a written advice on the legal issue within 14 days of the initial interview. Before meeting with the client the supervisor will meet with the students and discuss the nature of the problem that they are to advise the client on, and what information they will need to seek before providing the advice. The interview will then take place with a supervisor present, but the client will be told that the supervisor will have no active role in the interview. Following the interview a discussion will take place so the supervisor can guide the students in their research. Our experience to date demonstrates that advice is sought on a wide range of issues including housing, debt, welfare benefits, contractual disputes and employment. The students prepare the advice and forward the draft to the supervisor for review and comment. Experience has shown that there are usually no more than three drafts. When the final letter has been prepared it is forwarded to the assigned lecturer at MMU for despatching to the client. The supervisors involved in the scheme to date have found the experience rewarding but not overly demanding on their time. It is anticipated that each advice should take a supervisor no more than 2 hours’ work. For the supervisors who attend at Forrest Bank at least 5 years qualification is required, but for those supervising at the University supervisors are sought with 3 or more years qualification. The sessions currently take place on either Wednesday lunchtime or Wednesday evening but it is anticipated that a further day may be added. Personal Support Unit (PSU) and Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) Legal Advice Scheme The Personal Support Unit (PSU) based at Manchester Civil Justice Centre (MCJC) supports members of the public conducting their own litigation at MCJC and gives practical, emotional and procedural help. Working with Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) the PSU is to launch this autumn to provide advice to these litigants in person in how to prepare for the hearing including what areas of law they will need to address. Two students will interview each litigant in person on matters they need to address at the forthcoming hearing. No advice is given as to the prospects of success. The interviews will take place at MCJC. Supervisors are required to assist the students in preparation for the interview and preparation of the checklist thereafter. It is anticipated each referral will take up no more than 1 hour of a supervisor’s time. Supervisors are sought with 3 or more years qualification. The sessions are to be confirmed. If you are interested in being a supervisor please contact Mark Benson on 0161 838 6706 or e-mail him at mark.benson@blm-law.com
Those questions again, this time with the answers: Film Anagrams – Unscramble the letters to reveal a famous film 1 – REBEL IF NO FAITH – The Life of Brian Song Lyrics – Give the original artist and song title 4 – I’ll tell you something, I think you’ll understand – The Beatles, I Want to Hold Your Hand
Pro bono work rises due to recession
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It’s not surprising that there is a lot to say given that we don’t produce a newsletter in August, so this is a bumper issue. However, it’s particularly unusual to note so many arrivals and departures this summer. Starting (chronologically) with trustees, at the AGM in July we said goodbye to five trustees whose terms expired – Steve Butts, Kathryn Cearns, Denise Jagger, Michael Smyth and Stephen Scott. All have given very generously of their time. We are hugely sorry to lose them, though we hope they will stay in touch. In their places, we welcome a total of six new trustees – Claire Carless (in-house counsel, Vodafone), Julie Dickins (pro bono partner and coordinator, Mayer Brown), Amanda Finlay (formerly of MOJ), Kathryn Ludlow (global pro bono partner, Linklaters), Sandie Okoro (General Counsel, Barings Asset Management) and Jacky Sellers (LawWorks Reviewer). Some if not all of these names will be familiar to all of you, and we are really excited about the new experience and skillsets being made available to the board.
Registration is now open for...
The recent economic downturn has resulted in a lot of very talented lawyers finding themselves out of work, whether they have been affected by redundancy or are planning a return to work after a career break.
Freshfields trainee Owen Fry who, along with colleague Dominic Jones, represented Mrs A before the LVT said: “We were very pleased to be able to help resolve this long standing dispute; it was a fantastic opportunity to experience a different side of legal practice”.
Congratulations go to the eagle-eyed Paul Roebuck from The College of Law, who spotted our competition back in the June newsletter and successfully answered all of the tricky questions posed. A vintage Solicitors Pro Bono Group bag is winging its way to him.
