Advice charity sets up ABS in Leicester

A not-for-profit charity has become the first of its kind in the United Kingdom to gain an ABS licence and set up a legal practice under the Legal Services Act.

The Community Advice and Law Service, a Leicester-based housing, debt and welfare benefit advice charity, has formed Castle Park Solicitors. The new firm aims to provide high-quality, low-cost, legal services to people on low and middle incomes, many of whom would have been eligible for legal aid prior to the contentious cuts of April 2013. The firm will offer innovative funding options, such as fixed-fee packages (allowing people to know how much things will cost at the outset) and an “access to justice” package, whereby people dependent on means-tested benefits will be charged at half the standard rate.

The firm has at its helm two solicitors, both alumni of De Montfort University. The pair will be joined by an immigration lawyer in September. Jusleen Arora, who handles the family law cases, said: “Starting Castle Park Solicitors is in some ways really scary because we’re in very trying times for so many people - there have been so many changes. But on the other side, it’s exciting for us. People do have to go somewhere for help and will have to pay for services. If we can offer somewhere they can get good quality advice at competitive costs, we can help them. The fat cat lawyers don’t do the sort of work we do.”

Christine Palmer will advise on employment law cases. She said: “Castle Park is run as a business separately to the charity, with the same financial pressures that most law firms face today. We have an ethical ethos. Unfortunately we cannot give the service for nothing but we have set our rates very competitively. Our aim is to help those people who can no longer get legal aid and simply cannot afford to pay for full private legal services. We are also offering people the option of ‘unbundling’ legal services, so they pay only for advice at the stages it is most needed.”