Accessing Legal Aid: the South West Local Dimensions

What’s on offer?

A witness seminar with two two-hour panels featuring key witness speakers from University of Plymouth and University of Exeter Law Clinics as well as local legal professionals and wider commnity. They will be discussing their experiences and ongoing challenges when providing support for locals and immigrants in different areas of law, including refugees, with a focus on how these relate to the local dimensions, looking beyond the generalities to specific local area issues.

What’s it about?

This witness seminar event will provide the opportunity for discussing a range of experiences of legal aid, and how to access it, including the ongoing challenges of its provision in the context of legal aid constraints.

It has been widely agreed that as a nation-wide issue, the legal aid provision landscape is in urgent need of reform, the local dimension to that provision is less well understood. The nuances and region-specific needs when providing legal aid need to be taken seriously and properly understood.
 

It is consciousness of this that will shape the direction of this Witness Seminar event. A panel of speakers, with members drawn from the University of Plymouth, will discuss their experiences, highlighting both the challenges and the successes of alternative services in the region in supporting the availability of legal advice. The intention is to provide local law firms, community organisations and local government policymakers in the South West (as well as those at national levels) with a resource for the present and the future. 

Who’s leading the event?

University of Plymouth
Dr Simone Schroff, Associate Head of School (Law)
Rosie Brennan, Associate Professor of Law, Director, Law Clinic
Luke Fisher, Lecturer in Law
Professor Judith Rowbotham (Chair)

Exeter: Dr Craig Newbery Jones;