Education
Learning law through real cases
The Queen Mary Legal Advice Centre combines legal education with access to justice. Law students work under the supervision of qualified lawyers, interviewing clients, researching legal problems and preparing written advice. This gives students practical experience of professional responsibility, legal ethics and the way law affects people in their everyday lives. During 2024/25, the Centre provided 505 student opportunities across its clinics and projects. Between September 2024 and April 2025 alone, it received more than 2,700 client enquiries. Students also continued to support clients through the Social Welfare Benefits Tribunal Project, where the Centre passed the milestone of securing more than £1 million in disability benefits for clients whose claims had previously been refused.
Students taking the Centre’s clinical modules learn through this work directly. The Practice of Law in a Clinical Environment trains students to act as Student Legal Advisers and develops their understanding of professional ethics, case strategy and legal problem-solving. The Street Law module teaches students how to explain legal rights and responsibilities to members of the public in community settings.
Teaching legal rights in schools and communities
Queen Mary students also take legal education beyond the University through the Legal Advice Centre’s Public Legal Education and Street Law programme. In 2024/25, students delivered 84 community workshops reaching 1,945 participants. Twenty law students acted as workshop facilitators, using interactive teaching to help people understand their legal rights and the legal system. Projects covered areas including equality law, criminal justice, image-based sexual abuse and access to justice.
The programme also reached younger audiences. In 2024/25, 1,595 school students took part in SPITE for Schools workshops on the law around sharing intimate images. Queen Mary students also delivered School Tasking activities in local primary schools, using practical challenges to introduce children to law and legal concepts. These activities help to develop students’ ability to communicate complex legal information clearly while improving legal literacy among schools and community groups.
Developing professional legal skills through qLegal
At postgraduate level, qLegal gives students practical experience of commercial law while providing free support to entrepreneurs, start-ups and non-profit organisations. Students work with real clients through legal advice, public legal education, legal design and externships. By July 2024, qLegal had created 1,349 experiential learning opportunities for students and supported 2,316 start-ups with free legal and business advice.
The 2024/25 Externships Programme placed 32 postgraduate students with 26 start-ups. Students worked alongside founders on real legal and business challenges, gaining experience of professional practice while the participating organisations received additional legal and commercial support. qLegal also embeds experiential learning within the curriculum through credit-bearing modules in entrepreneurship law, public legal education, legal design and legal internships.
Learning how policy and law can be changed
Queen Mary also gives students experience of policy development and law reform. The Social Justice Policy Clinic, launched in 2025, enables law students to work in small groups on current social-justice issues. Under supervision, students analyse existing law and policy, conduct further research, consider options for reform and develop proposals for change with academic, legal and civil-society partners.
The Legal Advice Centre’s wider policy work connects this education to live public-policy debates. During 2025, its work included evidence submitted to the House of Commons Justice Committee’s inquiry into access to justice and to the Environmental Audit Committee on the effects of legacy toxic landfill sites. This gives students experience of how legal research, evidence and community experience can contribute to parliamentary scrutiny and policy reform.
Understanding access to justice and the rule of law
Queen Mary also teaches access to justice as an academic and professional subject. In 2024, the Legal Advice Centre again offered its Clinical Legal Education, Access to Justice and Pro Bono Law Summer School course. Students examine clinical legal education, public legal education and Street Law in the context of different legal systems, the rule of law and professional practice. This gives students a broader understanding of why access to legal knowledge, advice and representation matters to functioning and inclusive institutions.
Across these activities, students do more than study legal institutions in the classroom. They work with clients, schools, community organisations, businesses and policy issues, developing practical legal skills while contributing to access to justice, legal literacy and informed participation in public life.