Holistic Legal Support for Litigants in Person: The North and Mid Wales Law Clinic Partnership

Abstract

In 2020 the Access to Justice Foundation and Ministry of Justice launched the Legal Support for Litigants in Person (LSLIP) Grant, a two-year programme funding a range of earlier intervention services for litigants in person. Eleven projects were funded to deliver advice on a national, regional, and local scale, to litigants in person at different stages of their problem in various areas of civil and family law. Partnership working and earlier intervention were central to these activities, to achieve improved outcomes for clients. One such project became known as the North and Mid Wales Law Clinic (NMWLC), including seven Local Citizens Advice (CA) branches (six in North Wales plus Powys in Mid Wales) and Bangor University. The NMWLC delivers a service to support Litigants in Person (LiP) at every stage of their journey, providing generalist holistic advice designed to identify LiPs early on, preventing escalation of their legal problems, reducing financial hardship, and resolving issues with information to support self-help. The partnership provides generalist advice, and specialist advice and casework in the areas of Family Law, Employment Law, and Powers of Attorney and Deputyship (the latter being areas where local demand was identified by CA and partners). Through the project law students are supported to train as General Advisers and to assist specialist advisers and caseworkers. The project provided a unique way to develop clinical legal education (CLE), not least as it commenced fully online during the Covid-19 pandemic, focused on preventing escalation of legal problems, including through triage and partnership, and occurred in a small law department where existing provision (aside from in criminal law) was largely based on simulated activity. This article evaluates the first two years of the NMWLC from a CLE perspective, focusing on the experiences of student volunteers, exploring the challenges and opportunities of online working, and how the initiative fits with CLE models.