The Queen Mary Legal Advice Centre is a clinical legal education initiative. It gives our students the chance to work with the public and gain practical legal experience working with legal professionals. Find out what the centre does and how you could be involved.
The Queen Mary Legal Advice Centre provides free legal advice to members of the public and staff and students at Queen Mary. It also runs a number of community outreach projects and public legal education initiatives led by our students. The clients, cases and community groups they work with cover a wide range of legal issues and topics. This provides our students with the opportunity to experience law in a practical context and to develop many of the skills required for successful entry into the profession.
Read more on the Queen Mary Legal Advice Centre website.
Queen Mary Legal Advice Centre advisers are selected via application, and undergo an extensive training programme with legal professionals, academic staff and the Queen Mary Careers service. Once trained, you will have the opportunity to apply your legal knowledge in a practical context, including interviewing clients and researching their case.
You will also be able to compete for one of the many work placements and mentoring opportunities the LAC offers with top City firms. Find out more about the Queen Mary Legal Advice Centre Student Advisers.
The clients who use our service are usually members of the public and staff or students from Queen Mary. We are able to advise on a wide range of different issues, with the aim of equipping our clients with the legal knowledge they need and an indication of the viability of their case. Based on our recent survey, 100% of our clients would use us again and recommend our service to a friend.
We work with over 80 solicitors from London firms such as Reed Smith, Mischon de Reya, Bross Bennet, Simmons & Simmons, Field Fisher Waterhouse and many more. We also have connections with criminal law specialists 15 New Bridge Street Chambers and a wide range of other organisations such as Lawyers Without Borders. These professionals work with us by supporting our client work and investing in the development of our Student Advisers.
This project offers free legal advice for members of the black community on employment discrimination, actions against the police and immigration matters relating to the Windrush scandal.
The CHOICE Project offers free legal advice to clients on matters relating to lasting power of attorney and deputies.
This service can advise on the formation of companies, company disputes, and being a sole trader.
The Criminal Justice Project is designed to assist anyone who might have a query on a matter of criminal law or procedure. We deal with queries from people with a range of different issues. For example;
The Queen Mary Legal Advice Centre runs a clinic, working with the Royal Courts of Justice Advice, to support victims of domestic abuse take the first steps in obtaining non-molestation and occupation orders. Our clinic is open to all victims, regardless of gender.
The Queen Mary Legal Advice Centre is collaborating with the Environmental Law Foundation (ELF) to offer free legal advice in environmental law matters. The environmental law matters covered include; noise issues, pollution, land use, air quality, chemicals, transport, waste and / or water matters.
This service provides legal advice on a full range of family law issues. These include divorce, child contact disputes, child care proceedings, wills and probate and cohabitation issues. We provide a friendly and professional environment where clients can feel comfortable seeking advice.
The Queen Mary Legal Advice Centre FtP Support Services provides free practical support and advice to nursing and dental professionals under investigation by the Nursing Midwifery Council (NMC) and the General Dental Council GDC.
The SPITE service provides legal support to those who feel they have been a victim of someone sharing and publishing intimate images without their consent. Its aims are:
To provide our clients with all their possible options so they can make an informed decision.
This service to provides clients with advice on a range of immigration matters including asylum, indefinite leave to remain, and deportation.
The Queen Mary Legal Advice Centre offers free advice to people who are involved in the creative industries and have a legal concern relating to their work. This project aims to help budding web-designers, musicians, artists, writers, sculptors, designers or actors who cannot afford to access the legal advice you need then we may be able to help.
The Law in General service provides advice on a wide range of legal issues. There is no comprehensive list of what we can and cannot advise on as we very much rely on the available expertise of our supervising and volunteering solicitors. Typically, our cases encompass landlord and tenant matters, contract cases, consumer issues, employment law matters, and court procedure queries.
Pink Law gives free, impartial and confidential legal advice to the LGBT+ community. advising clients on a range of legal issues including: discrimination; civil partnership formation and dissolution; cohabitation issues; immigration; wills and probate; and hate crime.
The Special Education Needs and Exclusions Project aims to provide families and or carers with advice on their children’s Special Educational Needs. This can range from advice on appeals, SEN school support and issues relating to funding or travel.
This service offers free legal advice on wills and probate matters. We do not help with drafting wills, but can assist with disputes arising from them and other probate matters.
Since its opening in 2006, the Queen Mary Legal Advice Centre has won and been nominated for numerous awards. In 2020 we were selected to be the Queen Mary representative in the Collaborative Awards for Teaching Excellence hosted by Advance HE. In 2019 we were awarded the Principles Prize in the Teaching and Excellence Awards and the Richard Garriott Public Engagement Award.
Our activities as the Legal Advice Centre contributed to the wider School of Law winning The Best Contribution by a Law School at the annual LawWorks and Attorney General Student Awards in 2019.
Find out more about the Queen Mary Legal Advice Centre:
Queen Mary Legal Advice Centre websiteTwitter @QMLACFacebook QMULLegalAdviceCentre