Bristol firms help to fund law centre’s legal aid training contract

Four commercial firms in Bristol have teamed up with the Legal Education Foundation (TLEF) to fund a legal aid training contract.

As reported by the The Lawyer and Legal Cheek, Osborne Clarke LLP, DAC Beachcroft, TLT and Burges Salmon, the four largest commercial firms in Bristol, have all agree to help fund a trainee’s salary and training at the Avon & Bristol Law Centre. The law centre also made news recently when it was revealed that its student volunteers had helped to overturn 95% of the Department for Work and Pensions’ risible ‘fit for work’ decisions which would otherwise have seen sick and disabled people forced to seek employment that was unsuitable and unsafe for their conditions.

Clare Carter, director of the Avon & Bristol Law Centre, said: “We’re seeing more and more people asking for legal advice who have a complex range of personal and legal problems, and often ones as fundamental as hunger; we are seeing clients who haven’t eaten for days. Demand for our services is increasing at a time when resources are reducing as a result of public sector cuts, leading us to turn more and more to the private sector for support. I discussed ways of getting the private sector involved with TLEF, TLT and Osborne Clarke, and they agreed that it made sense to get a group of firms together, via TLEF’s Justice First Fellowship Scheme, to split contributions to the £37,500 a year cost of a trainee. It’s hoped that having the Bristol commercial law firms working together in this way will mean that the funding will be sustainable over more years than the two required to train the new solicitor, with the possibility of other law firms and barristers’ chambers stepping into the mix in future years.”