Nottingham Law School’s ‘teaching law firm’ recoups more than £3 million for clients

The Legal Advice Centre at Nottingham Law School, dubbed a ‘teaching law firm’, has recovered over £3 million in benefits and compensation for its clients in five years.

The centre was granted an Alternative Business Structure (ABS) licence in 2015 and since then more than 2,100 student volunteers have worked on nearly 2,000 real-life cases. The students are supervised by qualified solicitors and support clients with a range of legal issues alongside their studies, providing vital advice and access to justice to those who need it.

They work in legal areas such as employment, housing law, business support and commercial law, social justice, criminal law, family law, community legal issues and tribunal and court representation.

Head of the Legal Advice Centre, Laura Pinkney, said: “Enabling law students to be involved in the running of a law firm in this way provides a unique educational perspective in training lawyers for the future. It fosters a sense of social and civic responsibility and raises their awareness of access to justice issues.”

Dean of Nottingham Law School, Professor Janine Griffiths-Baker, said: “For the Legal Advice Centre to have recouped more than £3 million for its clients in a mere five years is outstanding. It demonstrates that colleagues and students at the Centre are working hard to meet an otherwise unmet legal need in a vacuum created by government legal aid cuts.”

Last month Sheffield Hallam University set up a fully-functioning law firm for its students to gain practical experience in every year of their LLB undergraduate degree.