How our students contribute

Our work and projects

Here are some of the areas of work our first and second-year students have been involved with on a voluntary basis: 

Family Law

The family law team run a busy advice and support service for parents facing court proceedings. The service is run by students and lawyers working together, and students progress through the project in stages to build their skills and confidence.

• Triage – students contact all potential clients to conduct an initial phone interview to gather background information and identify issues.
• Advice – students assist solicitors with advice appointments and draft advice letters.
• Drafting – students are trained to draft statements and court application forms for clients.
• Court – the team run a drop-in advice service in Liverpool Family Court and a support project at Birkenhead County Court. Trained students attend hearings with clients to provide support and assistance.

The family advice project is supported by solicitors from firms in Liverpool who volunteer their time to give advice to clients and give students the opportunity to meet a range of practising lawyers.

We aim to have approximately 40 - 50 students volunteering on the project at any one time, with a mix of experienced and new students volunteering at different stages of the project.  All students must commit to undertake a minimum of sessions for a minimum of 12 weeks when they join the project.

Immigration

The solicitors in the immigration team provide full casework advice, assistance and representation for people who are stateless, children and refugees who want to become British and people with human rights leave. The team intends to continue providing complementary support to local advice organisations, with the overall aim of increasing capacity in the immigration advice and representation sector in the Merseyside region. 

They continue to work alongside national and international policy organisations as experts to improve the rights of stateless persons in the UK (Asylum Aid, European Network on Statelessness, UNHCR).

A team of volunteer students work with the solicitors to progress complex and challenging cases. You will learn legal practice skills alongside the solicitors, including:   

• note-taking in interviews or hearings;
• drafting witness statements, advice letters for clients and representations to the Home Office;
• collating evidence;
• completing application forms and writing research reports.   

Special Educational Needs

The solicitors in the SEN team provide advice about all aspects of SEN law and procedure and assist parents with appeals to the Special Educational Needs and Disability Tribunal. They also work with local MPS and advice agencies to provide PLE. 

A team of students assist the solicitors with interviewing parents, drafting advice and completing forms.  Our most experienced students assist the solicitors in judicial review pre-action procedures.

Students are also able to support the team in their Public Legal Education Programme, which seeks to enhance the knowledge and understanding of parents and those working with children who may need additional support in schools.

Events 

With the opening of our new School of Law and Social Justice building, the Law Clinic now hosts events and open evenings which bring students from the Law Clinic together to share and discuss their experiences and allow those interested in joining us to hear about our work and ask questions. Our events will be advertised on our social media and through the Law Bulletin.

HEAR

All our projects are HEAR eligible.

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