The Free Representation Unit: FRU the Looking Glass
updated on 30 October 2007
The Free Representation Unit (FRU) inspires enthusiastic exclamations from all those who've been involved, past and present. Witness Mark Vinall, a barrister of five years' call at Blackstone Chambers, who says FRU is where it's at: "I can't recommend FRU highly enough. Even if you don't see yourself going within a million miles of employment or social security law, you should be queuing up to do FRU. It's the best experience you can get! You get to do real cases of your own, you do all the advocacy (both submissions and witness handling) and you make strategic decisions on how to run things." High praise indeed!
What's it all about?
FRU is a registered charity that provides legal advice and advocacy in employment tribunals (and appeals), social security and child support tribunal appeals, and some immigration and criminal injury compensation cases. Advice and representation is provided by volunteer law students and legal professionals in the early stages of their career.
FRU began in 1972, started by a group of people with two motives - first, to fill the gap created by the absence of public funding (ie, legal aid) available for tribunal cases, meaning that people who needed representation but couldn't afford it were left to represent themselves. Second, the group wanted to provide students with an opportunity to learn about advocacy, including how to prepare a case, handle witnesses and deal with tribunal chairs, all in an environment that was less intimidating than the formal criminal or civil courts. Clive Tulloch, chief executive of FRU since October 2006, says: "Frankly, those philanthropic ideals remain true - we aim to provide access to both justice and training."
FRU representatives are responsible for the entire conduct of a case - from interviewing and taking instructions from the client to liaising with the other side and negotiating settlement, and from drafting witness statements and other submissions to representing the client at tribunal. Each volunteer is well supported by other members of the FRU team, which includes two full-time specialist case workers: one responsible for social security and the other for employment.
Abou Kamara is a volunteer case worker who has been involved with FRU for the past six months. He has just finished his LLM and is going to start the BVC in 2008. He discuses why he decided to join FRU in the first place: "I like the principles on which FRU is based, and I wanted to give some of my time to people who don't have the means to help themselves in terms of legal representation. Also, the legal training is very valuable for my future career."
Who does it help?
The services provided by FRU are for those individuals who would not otherwise be able to obtain legal support, either by personal means or public funding. In reality, this means that many of FRU's clients are from racial minorities or other excluded groups. Clive gives us two recent case examples: "We had a woman of West African origin who had been the manager of a betting shop for 20 years. It was alleged that she had made her corporate travel card available to her brother - a charge she denied. She was then dismissed summarily for allegedly giving false evidence during the disciplinary proceedings. We argued that the dismissal was unfair and that the employer didn't have grounds for its accusations. The tribunal found in her favour and she ended up with £42,500 of compensation, which was a great result!"
In another case, a Lithuanian woman was refused her papers to register as an EU worker by her employer, teased about her nationality, physically assaulted and paid less than the agreed rate. Clive continues the story: "Although she spoke Russian, her English was weak. Nevertheless, she managed to get a default judgment for a few hundred pounds. However, at the substantive hearing, the tribunal chairman encouraged her to get a legal representative and, luckily, the FRU volunteer who picked up the case spoke Russian. As a result of it being argued properly, she ended up with £5,500, which gave her time to work out what to do next."
Why get involved?
Hui Ling McCarthy is a tenant at Gray's Inn Tax Chambers. She attests to the value of being a FRU volunteer: "At the beginning of your career, you mostly represent taxpayers so you very rarely get a chance to do any cross-examining. As a result, I found FRU training and working on a case incredibly useful because you get valuable real-life cross-examination experience, albeit in a different area of law. A lot of the exceptional barristers at the Tax Bar are those that have gone out of their way to get such skills."
Hui Ling goes on to say: "Taking on a FRU case several weeks before the listed hearing date (rather than only a few days before) gives students the chance to actually work with their client on the case. Effectively, they take on the roles of solicitor and barrister and get a much better feel for case management than by simply stepping in at the last minute to represent the client on the day at the hearing. There may also be the opportunity to try and negotiate a settlement with the employer and to deal with ACAS [the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service]."
Clive mentions some of the very senior lawyers who have taken cases at FRU, most of whom "would acknowledge that however good the tuition at university and beyond, there is a huge difference to doing something in a classroom and doing it for real. Our alumni include Baroness Scotland, Cherie Blair and Tony Blair!"
How do I get the most out of it?
Having made the decision to become a part of FRU, it's not enough to just do an induction day and leave it at that. You need to sink your teeth into some real cases. Clive's advice on this is as follows: "You need to take on three or four cases at least, although only one at a time! The first case can be very tough, so you need to get more experience beyond that. You can select your own cases, based on the hearing date and your own diary, but it's worth selecting a variety. For example, if one is an unfair dismissal case, you should choose something different for your next one, such as discrimination. Also, you should start early on in your academic year."
Abou says that for him, the experience so far has exceeded his expectations: "You have the opportunity to take a case, interview the client, and liaise with the tribunal and the opposing side. The most interesting bit is helping people and achieving moral satisfaction. Seeing them happy at a positive outcome, even though the award itself may be small in some people's eyes, is very pleasing."
Abou spends a couple of days a week working on cases, heading in to the office three times a week. Although this is in part possible because he is working for a family business, which allows some flexibility, he thinks that as a student, it is still possible to fit it in: "FRU doesn't force you to take cases, so you can choose one that has a hearing date in a couple of months' time, so you can plan ahead."
Clive confirms that reps must come to the London offices in order to carry out their role. He says: "You can do paperwork away from the office, which tends to suit students well, but we don't let people see clients in their home. Instead, they must see them here or at a local law centre or Citizens Advice Bureau. Also, all the post comes here, which means that we can keep in touch with everyone." He stresses that it is by being in the office that you learn the most: "The way I learnt my tax years ago - sitting in a large room and listening to others on the phone, asking my neighbour and working things out - is exactly the same as here. We are a group of people of varying levels of experience working in one room and learning from each other. It's a process of osmosis!"
How do I become a rep?
To qualify as a social security representative, you must be a third-year LLB student, a GDL student or have passed this stage. BVC and LPC students, trainees, pupils and qualified lawyers are also welcome.
To qualify as an employment representative, you must be an LLB graduate who has begun the BVC or LPC, an LLM student, or have passed this stage. Trainees, pupils and qualified lawyers are also welcome. GDL students are eligible to attend an employment training day and to volunteer to do employment cases. However, FRU warns that those just starting the GDL are at the very beginning of their legal education, and volunteering requires a good knowledge of relevant law and legal procedure, so it may not be suitable for them.
For both employment and social security, you must attend the relevant induction day, prepare a written opinion based on a sample case, attend a hearing and conduct a case to a satisfactory standard. Once all this is done, you will become a ratified FRU Representative qualified to undertake cases.
Final word…
While the skills gained at FRU are most useful for those pursuing a career at the Bar, Clive makes the point that the experience is about more than advocacy: "A student who wants to be a solicitor will still learn a lot about client handling at FRU. There is at least as much skill involved in understanding a client's real problems, persuading him or her that what the other side is offering is good (or bad!), as you do convincing the other side or tribunal of the merits of that client's case. And you get that experience in spades at FRU. Second, employment cases often settle, which means that the two sides have to agree terms. Negotiating with the client and the other side is all done in a protected environment because you're just five yards away from a case worker or experienced volunteer, who are there to help."
Steven Kovats is a barrister at 39 Essex Street. He says that developing these sorts of skill is imperative: "You will have difficulty getting pupillage without mooting or FRU experience because you really won't know what you're letting yourself in for. It's no good being academically brilliant but not enjoying getting up and arguing - it's too late if you find that out in your second six. So it's much better to try it out and see if you like it. If you don't, there's no point in becoming a barrister."
With his view from the frontline, Abou sums things up: "There is a huge gap between the requirements of academic law and those of legal practice, but FRU bridges that gap at an early stage. I'd recommend it to any law student."
