Strathclyde Law Clinic celebrates 15 years
The student law clinic at the University of Strathclyde has marked its 15th anniversary with a celebration of its achievements in helping people of limited means secure access to justice.
Speakers at an event in the university highlighted the growth of the clinic and its successes in a number of cases, often against qualified legal representatives.
The first of its kind in Scotland, the clinic was founded by Professor Donald Nicolson soon after his move to Strathclyde in 2003, after he had set up and run a similar clinic at the University of Bristol. Today it has the involvement of dozens of students from first year onwards, under a student director and an executive committee of student volunteers, under the supervision of an academic director, Kate Laverty, and helped by practising solicitors who volunteer their assistance.
Providing advice through face to face clinics and online, and representing clients at tribunals and in the sheriff court, it calculates that it has to date helped 3,377 people and won or saved them close to £800,000 in total.
At last night's event, Shona Simon, an employment tribunal judge, described two cases where students from the clinic had obtained significant awards for their clients before the tribunal, and quoted other judges who praised their conduct of their cases.
Other speakers included Kate Laverty, who commended the "amazing work" and seemingly limitless energy of the students; Professor Douglas Brodie, Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences at the university, who highlighted the ethos of the clinic, and Alison Atack, President of the Law Society of Scotland, who praised its role in widening access to justice. Student members past and present also spoke of what it meant to them.
The clinic works mainly with consumer protection, housing, employment and benefits issues, and collaborates with other bodies on immigration and asylum cases, and in helping run the Scottish Women's Rights Centre.
It welcomes donations and offers of help from outside.