Welcome to our update of the latest legal aid and access to justice news from May 2020.
Legal aid funding during Covid-19: On 4 May 2020, the Ministry of Justice (‘MoJ’) announced new government funding of £5.4 million to support the legal advice sector during the pandemic. Law Centres have seen an increase in demand for advice on social welfare issues, so this funding is aimed at mitigating the increase in costs of providing remote services.
New legal aid rules will decimate access to justice for asylum seekers and migrants. These rules must be stopped. Please support YLAL's campaign against these rules and ask your MP to support a fatal motion in Parliament.
YLAL member and Garden Court North pupil barrister Christian Weaver created this helpful explainer:
On Wednesday 27 May 2020, YLAL South West hosted a virtual meeting on wellbeing during COVID-19. The meeting was chaired by Emma Trevett (YLAL committee member, paralegal at Irwin Mitchell LLP and volunteer at Bristol Law Centre). The meeting began by discussing the key findings from YLAL’s second COVID-19 report.
The University of Law have announced that it is launching a Career Changer scholarship which will provide up to 10 full fee scholarships and 300 individual awards to support those whose job security has been impacted by COVID-19 and wish to re-train in law.
The scholarships will provide applicants with an opportunity to study a number of the University of Law's courses, including GDL or MA Law, LPC, BPC or LLM.
Entry criteria
On 25 May 2020, Young Legal Aid Lawyers (YLAL) published its second report on the impact of COVID-19 on its members’ professional lives. This report considers survey responses collected between 2 May 2020 and 13 May 2020. We received 104 responses from those practitioners who would be eligible to be YLAL members. This report provides an update on YLAL’s previous COVID-19 report, which was published on 7 April 2020.
Welcome to our update of the latest legal aid and access to justice news from April 2020.
This is YLAL’s response to the Civil Justice Council (‘CJC’) Rapid Consultation.
The CJC launched its consultation on 1 May 2020, against the backdrop of significant adaptations to the justice system and the format justice is delivered, during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In response to the statements from the Lord Chief Justice and the Lord Chancellor that jury trials in some courts will resume as early as the 18 May, YLAL calls for the Ministry of Justice to guarantee that the safety of our members and other court users will not be put at compromised when jury trials resume.
Young Legal Aid Lawyers provided a briefing on the impact of the COVID-19 crisis upon junior legal aid lawyers.
The Justice Select Committee heard evidence from the Ministry of Justice and legal professionals on the impact of the pandemic upon lawyers, their clients, and the Court System on Monday 4 May 2020.
You can read live tweets of the hearing: Tweets by CommonsJustice
A month ago, we did a survey about how COVID-19 was affecting our members and their work.
