Presentation at HEA Social Sciences learning and teaching summit 'Engaging legal education'. As part of the Higher Education Academy’s commitment to support strategic development within disciplines, this summit event provided the opportunity to bring together an expert audience to discuss and plan actions on a key area of our work. This presentation forms part of a blog post which can be accessed via: http://bit.ly/1iv2kYu For further details of HEA Social Sciences work relating to 'Supporting the future of legal education' please see http://bit.ly/1ezsxUf

2. Research, Education and Innovation:
Community Legal Outreach Collaboration, Keele
(CLOCK):
“The Community Legal Companion”

3. Research; Reclaiming Rights;
grassroots legal strategies (forthcoming Pluto Press).
•
The 'Community Legal Outreach Collaboration, Keele' was initiated as a
development of our longterm research and education relations with community partners
which have evolved since my research interests in rights in reconstructing communities,
inspired through a Faculty 'Alternative Globalisations' research series, which committed to
‘Our view of the University as an inclusive space, open to different voices, embedded in the
problems of the community which surrounds it, and facilitative of a genuine exchange of
ideas between campaigners, practitioners and academics from the local to global contexts’
hosted a national workshop with our key partners, CAB, Savana, Arch and Brighter Futures:
'Local Voices in Global Times'.

4. Education
• The development of the community based research collaboration
provided a practical framework to create our first 'Law in Action'
curriculum an elective module co-designed with Rosie Harding,for our
second year students to visit and design with our partners, Savana, CAB,
Brighter Futures, Aspire and VoE. Drawing upon a range of community
legal scholarship and applying this to their learning within the community
partner organisation, the students conducted a research project which
they then presented as a community legal education project to the local
school, Madeley High School.

5. Keele and Partners, Community Legal Education
Aspire, Social Housing
Citizens Advice and Embrace;
aslyum seeking s.4.
Arch and Voices of Experience;
Intimate Violence
Brighter Futures,
Researching:Homelessness and
Complex needs, mental health
and the women’s project
Savana; Intimate Violence,
designing youth focused
information on sexual violence

6. Reflective Learning
•
“I chose this module because it stood out as different: it seemed the most
‘hands on’ module which would involve the least robotic learning. I also liked
the fact that we would put our education to use outside of Keele; applying it to
real life situations and working on a community project. It was fascinating that
international students in the class were interested in comparing social justice in their
own country to Great Britain.
•
This module is one of the very few of its kind and that studying law in an everyday
life context is not a compulsory part of a law degree. I had never really thought
about this before but it is shocking! ‘You don’t learn to drive without getting in the car..
How can it be right to have a law degree with no insight on how the law affects every
day society”.

7. social justice, educating, rights issues, public interest lawyering and
access to justice
• When told we would be working with community organisations
outside of Keele, my initial reaction was of uncertainty. I had not
heard of the term ‘Community Legal Education’ and wasn’t sure if
this was for me. After the lectures and reading the article on the
role of community based clinical legal education, I recognised that
many of the values were held by me- social justice, educating, rights
issues, public interest lawyering and access to justice. I had learnt
that we as students in a privileged position have a greater
responsibility in the society we are part of.’

8. Innovation
•
Inspired and driven by the reality of social issues, shared by the 'stories' of Sharon
Small, VoE, women within Embrace, and the service users of Brighter Futures, and
Aspire, the students presented their research projects with public bodies, legal
professionals and a wider range of third sector partners. Through engaging with
professional partners, the students gained a wider picture of the
potential impact of recent legislative reform with regard to
welfare provision and legal aid, re Secretary of the North
Staffordshire Law Society, and within a shared report of Brighter Futures and the
Citizens Advice Bureau 'A Local Response to the Government's Welfare Reform Bill.

9. CLOCK- Community Legal Outreach
Collaboration Keele
• Following the Community Legal Education, Law in Action
presentations; formed the Community Legal outreach
Collaboration, Keele (CLOCK)
• Drawing on the Regional Law Society Roundtable; “innovations in
legal services to meet unmet legal need, pilot McKenzie
friend,“She’s my calm in the storm”
• Proposal to develop expert guidelines and training programme for
selected students to be trained and supervised by the professional
partners as a Community Legal Companion

10. Clock: Memorandum of Understanding

1. To build innovative and collaborative frameworks for Keele Law School,
Community partners, Law Firms and Public Bodies to educate, support and
promote community access to justice and legal services’ needs.

2. To develop, train and supervise Keele/community Legal Companions to
participate responsibly and collaboratively as active citizens to support
communities in which they live and work.

3. To collate information, transfer knowledge and share resources to promote
social and legal policy research on legislative reforms, issues of access to justice
and disseminate to wider community, academic and professional bodies

11. CLOCK-IN, Community Legal Education
•
Collaborative commitment to develop community legal education projects to share in schools, colleges,
university and wider communities on social and legal issues, such as hate crimes, intimate/societal
violence, homelessness and citizenship to develop community legal consciousness, awareness-raising and
access to justice, and raising aspirations

12. Voices of Experience!
• I still can't believe that I - me - actually spoke to University students, I never
thought I'd even step foot on a University campus! It just shows that with
good, non-judgemental, dedicated support victim/survivor's of abuse can
become valued contributing members of their community and society.
Please pass on my sincere thanks and gratitude to all of the students who
came to listen to me. Their quiet, positive support which I could sense
whilst sharing my experiences made me feel valued and quite important
actually. Another big step forward in my own personal journey of recovery.

13. Community Legal Companion
• Community legal companions are collaboratively trained and
supervised to support community partner services to assist in legal
needs to: housing, welfare benefits, family law, criminal justice,
asylum and immigration through guidance in
• Form filling and application process
• Unbundling papers in formal proceedings
• Note Taking
• Assistance in legal and formal proceedings

14. Sept 2012 Training and Launch of the
Community Legal Companion

•
The judges of Stoke-on-Trent County Court are very impressed by the
scheme and the presence of trained volunteers in our court on a daily basis
will provide a valuable source of support for many Court Users facing
difficult issues. We feel fortunate that this imaginative scheme is based
locally. We look forward to supporting the development of the scheme
National Law Society President, Lucy Scott Moncrieff
The cuts to legal aid are sadly inevitable, but the time for reflection on those cuts has passed and we must
now look at how to ensure access to justice facilitated for those who need it. Keele University’s initiative
encapsulates that approach and I hope that it will eventually be replicated in some way in other areas around
the country. The Community Legal Companion idea not only helps to serve those seeking support when
encountering the legal system, but it also gives the lawyers of tomorrow vital experience and a deep
understanding of the importance of access to justice.

15. Community Legal Companion
Roles and Responsibilities
Community Legal Companion is:
• A Keele Law Student monitored and insured by Keele University Law School
• CRB/DBS checked, and bound by the confidentiality and well being agreement
• Committed to one session (4hrs) per fortnight for the academic term-time
teaching (20 weeks)
• Trained by the partnership 5 day academic, solicitor, third sector, court and
barrister training; with additional court and third sector specialism
• Supervised in the location of the respective partner organisations
• Bound to report all community legal companion activities

16. Operational Model
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
The Community Legal Companions are allocated to the court rota and a third
sector specialist team (Savana, VoE, Arch, Brighter Futures, CAB, Aspire)
Clients are referred to the CLOCK partnership for the community legal companion
service by:
i) public sector access to court legal companion desk, clock email/phone
ii) charitable sector access to charitable legal companion desk
iii)private sector clients need to private law firm (listed as partners on leaflet)
complete and sign the information letter
Referral process; to mediation, legal aid and affordable fixed fee service

17. Feedback

•
“CLOCK have been efficient and reliable in organising legal companionship for my
service user whose case is unique and complex, as she is a victim of domestic
violence yet legally defined as a defendant.I feel relieved that my service user has
a legal companion who can provide her with assistance and moral support during
her trial, and ensure that information is recorded in case of an appeal being
necessary. CLOCK is a necessary service for vulnerable individuals who either
cannot afford legal advice or aren’t seen as eligible for support due to their unique
circumstances”.
Litigant in person: ‘Without the legal companion we wouldn’t have support at
court. The support is fantastic -you can share your view and your say only’.

18. CLOCK-Wise
• Collaborative frameworks to support social and legal policy
research to monitor and critically analyse legal issues in the
local community towards wider dissemination, social
advocacy and policy reforms at local, national and
international levels.

19. Innovative Research findings





Child Contact case; Litigants in Person; calming court process
and facilitating supervised contact order with YMCA
Criminal Defendant; Assisting access to justice for criminal
defendant to attend trial and observe distinct criminal and civil
re duress, with Arch, Brighter Futures
Care proceedings; assisting non-biological parties (not eligible
for legal aid) to proceedings, with Court ref to Nowell-Meller
Assisting vulnerable adults, Lichfield Reynolds
Debt assistance, Brighter Futures

20. CLOCK Tours; Westminster,
DeMountford
• "The Community Legal Companion, CLOCK, is a progressive initiative that
the current times demand to be rolled out nationally'. David Roberts,
Director of Clinical Studies, Westminster University.
• "We are looking at ways to mitigate the impact of the legal aid scope
cuts and the CLOCK project creates an exciting model for us to adopt
locally", Glenda Terry, Advice Services Development Officer,Community
Advice and Law Service,

21. Worcester Law School, Law Society
and On-side Advocacy
•
The Director of Worcester Law School and Trustees of Onside-Advocacy visited the CLOCK Tour and provided
following feedback:
•
“To have such a wide range of professionals working collaboratively to support the CLOCK partnership is most
impressive. They clearly see the value of the Legal Companion role and the benefits it brings to the community in
these times of reduced public funding. However, hearing from those with personal acute needs who have benefited
directly from the support of the Companions is quite inspirational and reinforces what a valuable service they are
providing. Thank you for sharing your work with us. It’s a great model for what can be achieved and has given us so
much useful information for the development of our work in Worcester.”
•
The tale of the Worcester team's observations suggest that this Keele model merits further exposure for its
initiatives and impact.With, in effect, the cessation of the ‘Legal Aid’ programme as it was and its evolution into a
new mutation with centralised and commercial controls run from regional centres, the provision of a local service
with access to citizens in the community will become a resource of huge importance for those who rely on use of
the national legal system.

22. The Court Manager of Birmingham Civil
Justice Centre

"Designated Family Judge for Birmingham Civil Justice Centre, Her Honour Judge
Hindley QC, is very interested in adopting this scheme for the Birmingham Family
Courts. The Family Courts in Birmingham is one of the largest centres for family work
outside of London and cover a wide range of work from the usual cases such as Divorce
and Private and Public Law to Court of Protection and International Maintenance
matters. As you can appreciate we have a huge amount of litigants in person which has
only increased since the legal aid changes. She has nominated District Judge Stephen
Gailey and the Legal Adviser manager Fiona McCourt to start to look at the possibility
of adopting our scheme and requested assistance in developing the model with
Birmingham Law School".

23. European Parliament

May 30th The CLOCK Community Legal Companion
project was featured in Good Practice Collection on
Social Innovation that was distributed at the
conference “Social Innovation – Priority for a
European Agenda” at the European Parliament on
May 30th.

24. Contributions to UK Parliamentary
Debate

The evidence provided by Voices of Experience and others was invaluable in providing Baroness Scotland with the hard
examples to show that the points we and other representative bodies were making were real and not merely theoretical.
Please could you pass on my thanks to them for their help, which contributed to securing a successful vote on Baroness
Scotland’s motion.


There were some useful comments in Lord McNally’s speech. He has given an important clarification that for a crossundertaking to deny a victim their legal aid, "there would have to be equivalence in the cross-undertaking". It would be
pushing it to call this a concession, but it was an important clarification that we had previously been unable to get.


He also agreed to look again at the situation where someone has been in hiding and therefore cannot get evidence from
within the two year cut-off. He believes the ability to apply for an injunction in those circumstances is sufficient protection but of course that requires an injunction application that at present would not be made, and that in and of itself may
increase the risk of violence. But he has promised to keep this under review “from day 1”.


All of this groundwork will help to ensure that when the actual examples arise, there is strong pressure on the Government
to revise the arrangements quickly to ensure greater protection for the victims of domestic violence.

25. Contributionto Low Commission
• Launch of the Report, Jan 2014
• Public Legal Education Recommendations for Law School
collaboration; Ministry of Justice should work with Dept of
Education to integrate information about legal rights and
responsibilities in the national curriculum
• University Law Schools to work with LawWorks and Law for Life.
• Training for Community Legal Companions:

26. HEA Outcomes!
Higher
Education
Community
Partners
Social and Legal
Policy Reform
• Raising Higher Aspirations
• Development of Graduate Attributes
• Motivation to participate as an active citizen in wider community
• Community Legal Education, in Schools and Colleges
• Raising awareness, prevention and promotion
• Contributions to community, schools, partner outreach.
• National and International Collaborations and Reflective Learning
• Research and Advocacy and Policy reforms

27. Welcome Collaborations;
j.h.Krishnadas@keele.ac.uk
• Develop National HEA data on unmet legal
needs and access to legal services
• Develop HEA as coordinating body for
community legal collaboration
• Please see flyers for interest in building
partnerships at local and national level.