What is a Law Centre?
We are a voluntary organisation (a registered charity, and a company limited by guarantee).
Our purpose is to provide free legal advice to local people. Our emphasis is on combating poverty, oppression and social exclusion. We hope, through the use of legal means, to achieve social change for the better.
We aim to provide a legal advice service that is comprehensive, but we specialise in certain areas of law. These are: Housing, Welfare Benefits, Employment, Debt and Education. We also have some expertise in Community Care and Human Rights law. When we get enquiries outside our expertise, we aim to know how to refer our clients intelligently, so that they obtain the information and advice they need.
Our head office is in Carlisle, where we open daily to the public. We also operate in Allerdale and Copeland, holding weekly advice sessions in Workington, Whitehaven, Maryport, Wigton and Silloth. We hold a monthly session in Millom.
How are we different from solicitors firms?
Our services are free
Our services are not really free, and need to be paid for by someone. But we are committed never to require a client to pay us from their own money. Instead, we try to get funding from elsewhere. That is achieved, thanks to a combination of financial support from our local authority funders – Carlisle City Council, Allerdale Borough Council and Copeland Borough Council – and from legal aid (the Legal Services Commission). At times, we get funding for a particular case from a benefactor such as a trade union.
We have a purpose other than business profit
We are guided by our charitable and (non-aligned) political purpose: to change things for the better. Guided by our management committee, we decide on priority work, and seek to ensure that our efforts are directed towards those priorities. (So, we attempt to help keep people in their homes, and obtain housing for the homeless and we will not generally act for landlords. Similarly, we attempt to help people keep and improve their livelihoods and working conditions: and we will not generally act for employers.)
We concentrate on unmet need
For instance, we do not take on crime or divorce cases, as there are other local lawyers who do this already.
We prevent as well as cure
We try to prevent problems as well as solving them. We take pride in working with people and helping them deal with their problems. But that is not enough. We want to understand how those problems first arose. We want to see what can be done to prevent those problems arising at all so we look out for opportunities to share our skills and knowledge - through education and training - as well as though advice and legal casework.
We seek to change systems that serve people badly
We seek to check organisations or people that act unlawfully, and persuade them to act lawfully in future. We seek to change laws that serve people inadequately, and to make suggestions as to how the law can be improved.
We are accountable to the Community we serve
Law Centres believe that lawyers can be most useful to a local community when that community has a controlling influence on how they work. This is achieved through our Management Committee (our board of directors). To be properly accountable, our Management Committee must reflect our local community. We believe our Committee will best reflect Cumbrian society if local community groups send delegates to serve as committee members.
At present we are fortunate to have representatives of Cumbria Action for Social Support (“CASS”), Carlisle and District Credit Union, and Impact Housing Association. We are also grateful for the contribution of elected members of Carlisle, Allerdale and Copeland councils.
