Pro bono projects in Leeds
BPP Legal Advice Clinic (BLAC)
With the assistance of our clinic manager and case supervisors (volunteer lecturers and practitioners), our law students interview and advise clients on their legal problems. BLAC's aims are to offer free legal advice to the community and to provide our students with the opportunity to gain practical legal experience.
Human Rights Unit
The Human Rights Unit includes a variety of student human rights initiatives, through which our students provide supporting legal research to various human rights organisations. Through the BPP Liberty Letters Clinic, our students draft replies to human rights queries from the public. This project is co-ordinated through our pro bono centre in London, with the support of a Leeds-based student director for each human rights initiative.
Speaker series
The centre hosts speakers from various law firms, chambers and non-profit organisations who come to discuss their pro bono work with our law students. Recent speakers include representatives from the International Bar Association, LawWorks and the Bar Pro Bono Unit.
Research initiatives
The centre's staff and students are engaged in researching national and international pro bono policy and practice. The aim is to promote pro bono awareness and efforts both locally and globally.
Internship placements
Students provide pro bono services while at the same time gaining practical experience (and possibly travel) by undertaking internships with national and international non-profit organisations. The centre provides research resources, advice and individual counselling to help students find such opportunities.
Immigration
Our students work with volunteers on the Manuel Bravo project providing assistance to asylum seekers in the local area with their appeals. This assistance includes conducting country research, been involved in the interview process, assisting with reviewing documentation and preparing appeal bundles.
Intellectual Property Pro Bono Group
The group's aims are to promote interested students' understanding of the field of intellectual property (IP) law while facilitating IP lawyers' provision of pro bono services to the community.
The group has three main branches of activity - providing interviews and letters of legal advice to a small number of individuals and charities; designing and delivering presentations on IP law to music, film and art students; and replying to IP queries submitted to the online advice service of our partner organisation Own It, a non-profit group providing free intellectual property advice to London's creative industries.
Leeds Cares
Leeds Cares is a Business in the Community initiative. It provides opportunities for businesses to make a commitment to local community involvement, bringing vital resources to address community needs. Addleshaw Goddard, DLA Piper and Eversheds are all key supporters of the project. Throughout the year our students have the opportunity to get involved in organising and managing individual and team challenges in the community. These range from the Right to Read and Numbers Partners projects which assist children between 7-11 years with their reading or maths, to assisting community groups and charities with painting and decorating or gardening.
Mediation Friends project
We are hoping to develop an initiative pioneered by the pro bono centre in London in which our students, who are trained in mediation, will provide free support to otherwise unrepresented parties to mediation. The project's goals are to provide assistance to the unrepresented parties and to promote the use of mediation as a form of alternative dispute resolution.
Parent Partnership project
Run in conjunction with Education Leeds, this project provides our students with the opportunity to assist families whose children have been permanently excluded from school to appeal that decision. Our students are fully trained by Education Leeds and provided with the opportunity to enhance their interviewing, research and advocacy skills, as well as giving an excellent support service for the families involved.
Streetlaw
The Streetlaw project is based on the philosophies of the US-based Street Law Program and Streetlaw UK to promote education about the law, democracy and human rights to citizens who would not otherwise have access to legal knowledge or education. Our students provide interactive learning presentations on the law to various groups, including primary and secondary school pupils, prison inmates, community groups and the homeless. Our Bar students also assist school children to prepare for the Citizenship Foundation's mock trial competitions and help organise the mock trials.
Marie Dhanendran, who completed her LPC at BPP Law School, Leeds in June 2008, was named 'pro bono hero' as a result of her work on the Streetlaw project by the Attorney General at a reception at the House of Commons during National Pro Bono Week 2008.
