Response from Avon and Bristol Law Centre
Background
Avon and Bristol Law Centre has been established for over 30 years. It currently employs 26 staff of
whom 7 are legally qualified and 7 are paralegals.
It provides high quality legal advice in Employment, Discrimination, Public Law, Mental Health,
Housing, Immigration (including Asylum) and specialist Welfare Benefits. Where this advice can be
delivered and to whom is based on a variety of contracts and grants.
It extends its reach across the South West region of England and into Wales. In Wales the Law
Centre works with children and young people who are asylum seekers. It also provides mental health
tribunal representation to patients detained in hospitals in Wales (though frequently these patients
have been transferred from English hospitals).
It manages and/or is involved with a range of projects including the Pro-bono project, Europe Direct
- informing people of their rights under EU law) Ask Us ( a collaborative project with Bristol agencies)
to deliver advice to young people and a discrimination project involving a range of other agencies
located in Bristol. It works with volunteer students to deliver the Legal Advocacy Support Project to
support clients undertaking welfare benefits appeals.
Pro-Bono advice
The Law Centre has always been supported by volunteer lawyers who provide face to face advice to
clients on a Tuesday evening, currently this advice is provided in Family and Employment law.
The cuts in legal aid under LASPO, has had a significant detrimental impact on people with few
resources at their disposal, to secure access to justice. The further an individual is from major
conurbations, the less likely they are able to secure free and independent advice. This was found to
be particularly the case in areas of family, employment and immigration. Small firms that once
undertook legal aid abandoned undertaking much of this work and these areas of law are not ones
where legal expertise is readily available at local advice centres who themselves are under
continuing pressure due to cuts in local funding. This has effectively created advice deserts in many
areas of the South West.
In response to this ABLC considered how it could develop services that responded to these issues.
Whilst immigration is a pressing issue, it is across the whole country and in Bristol itself. There is
simply a lack of adequately trained and experienced solicitors in this area of law, and whilst the Law
Centre has been building a new immigration team, they are only able for immigration (rather than
asylum or children’s matters) to serve Bristol in a very limited way.
In terms of employment and family, the Law Centre having already developed links through its
Tuesday night clinics, sought to build on these to be able to offer these pro-bono services in a more
flexible way to provide greater reach into Somerset where there is a serious lack of advice in both
family and employment.
