Across the UK, Law Centres stand on the frontline of social justice, ensuring that access to justice isn’t reserved for the few. Yet, as public services shrink and new legislation reshapes the landscape of rights, the battle is uphill: the people most in need of legal protection are often the least able to access it, and Law Centres are seeing day-to-day the impact of that. Against this backdrop, Law Centres are asking what more they can do. The Building Strategic Partnerships for Social Justice project and toolkit, supported by the Baring Foundation over a three-year period, offers one powerful answer: meaningfully bring legal and community expertise together to create systems change.
The case for Strategic Legal Partnerships
Individual casework is transformative: for the person(s) involved, an eviction case is their life and their home.
As sweeping changes are happening across the board, however, we see how justice is getting further away for many. Among others, ever increasing demand for services means many never get to a Law Centre, and misinformation means many do not feel that access to rights and entitlements is a tangible concept.
The Law Centre movement has historically involved strategic legal action and partnerships; however, funding changes, and not least LASPO 2012 changes to legal aid, have re-shaped the landscape for Law Centres.
Individual casework must remain properly resourced. However, when resources are focused only on responding case by case, the systemic change that communities need can remain out of reach.
The project
With funding from The Baring Foundation, three Law Centres in Derbyshire, Suffolk and Liverpool have set out to explore strategic legal partnerships between 2022 and 2026, with the Law Centres Network and Central England Law Centre as support.
What are Strategic Legal Partnerships?
Strategic legal partnerships work upstream to spot problems early, build trust, and create collective solutions that last.
This model of working connects Law Centres with local partners – community groups, health services, foodbanks, libraries and those directly affected by injustice – around a shared issue such as housing, immigration, or employment. Together, they map the problems, combine their expertise, and decide on the most effective route to change, whether through education, advocacy, partnership with institutions, or, when necessary, legal action.
Legal action remains a vital tool, and, by combining community power with legal power, it becomes a more proactive and strategic tool for justice.
There are many things to be said about what we all learnt throughout these three years. In this blog post, however, I’ll focus on our partners and their impact.
Learning from Practice: Derbyshire Law Centre
Derbyshire Law Centre appointed a community connector: someone embedded in local networks, able to listen, engage, and bring people together. This “human face of the Law Centre proved inspirational, (…). The connector was able to pursue multiple lines of enquiry rooted in casework, while embedding those insights within statutory and community partnerships. Because they were perceived as less adversarial than a lawyer, the connector made far greater progress in building relationships” (Law Centre Mentor, Central England Law Centre).
They successfully secured practical accessibility improvements (e.g. reversing a previous council refusal to fix a dangerous train station ramp; rail station wheelchair accessibility; hospital A&E neurodiversity accessibility changes – a whole range) and increased community recognition of discrimination issues (63% increase in enquiries).
Thanks to their work bringing local voices together with local MPs and rail companies, among other stakeholders:
- East Midlands Railway has sought training for their staff from the Sight Loss Councils, in acknowledgement of the service gaps for people with sight loss;
- Northern Rail is funding one of the self-organised groups for disabled people in Chesterfield;
- MP Louise Sandher-Jones organised a meeting with the Minister of State for Rail to talk about a local issue raised through the project and had a call with Derbyshire Law Centre prior to it to provide information for the meeting; and
- A representative of the Office for Rail and Road has invited further contributions from Derbyshire Law Centre following powerful input from experts by experience through an event organised by the Law Centre.
Project staff felt like they’d also gained new skills in effecting social change, and by the end of the project, the organisation’s Senior Solicitor recognised the value of this work and wanted to apply it to other areas of law:
“I think we’ve learnt loads as well, about having someone in that role going out and engaging with all the other organisations. So now we’re looking to put something together about the new Renters Rights Act …it’s really invaluable.”
Acting as a bridge between legal professionals and local voices, the community connector achieved more than could have been achieved through legal work alone.
Learning from Practice: Suffolk Law Centre
Suffolk Law Centre, reflecting on the barriers neurodivergent young people face when leaving education and entering employment, worked to create fairer systems from the start, “to avoid the stress of lengthy litigation, and instead [for employers] to adopt best practice that supports neuro-divergent and other disabled people to join, stay and flourish at work.” (Senior Solicitor).
Suffolk Law Centre co-designed a nationally-visible Education Leavers’ Passport, built an employment rights online platform for neurodivergent people, and influenced local and national stakeholders on this topic. For example, they gave written and oral evidence to the House of Lords Public Services Committee inquiry on the transition from education to employment for young disabled people. Suffolk Law Centre’s submission is mentioned in nine distinct points of the resulting report.
They also worked with employers like the Co-op, which run a scheme whereby they employ people with disabilities locally and supported the spread of good practice to other employers in the area.
As a result of their work, they felt able to lead the conversation on supporting young disabled people into employment: “Mr. Buckland was even aware of it [ the Education Leavers Passport]…And that’s allowed us as a Law Centre to move with that quite freely and quite possibly lead that conversation in places… Without this funding, we probably would have been going along with what was being said or be slightly behind playing catch up. I think it’s allowed us to be ahead of the game as far as that’s concerned.” (Senior Solicitor)
Learning from Practice: Vauxhall Law Centre
Vauxhall Law Centre developed a fruitful and symbiotic referral mechanism with Merseyside Refugee Support Network and Merseyside British Red Cross Foundation to support refugees and asylum seekers access housing. They also developed early-intervention training so staff in other frontline and grassroots organisations could identify legal needs before crises erupted. Their story became a local and national talking point, with coverage in the Law Gazette helping to amplify voices too rarely heard.
Through a combination of approaches, their partnership helped refugee communities access justice sooner. Vauxhall Law Centre issued 100+ successful Pre-Action Protocol letters, and applied pressure that contributed to the local authority expanding capacity of its housing team, with ten additional staff hired and the formation of a Refugee Homelessness Team that did not exist before.
Threatening legal action was sufficient in all the 100+ letters they sent to secure the unlawfully denied rights of homeless refugees. “And we’ve just really been able to work with community organisations, really develop those relationships and really produce some really excellent work, really good casework, really good outcomes.” (Project paralegal).
The ability to secure rights for individuals without lengthy and stressful litigation at a vulnerable time in someone’s life inspired people on the project about the value of this work: “For people, with the advice and the security we’ve been able to give them, getting their lives back together after what has probably been a horrific time for them, being able to engage in society … you can’t even quantify the effects that that’ll have on a person… ” (Project lead)
The space for reflection, identification of patterns and creative solutions was seen as a healthy antidote to the rush to bill for legal aid work: ”And that…allowed us the space to take those reflective moments and to trial and error, which ordinarily you might not have, because…we’re really working very hard to be billing all of the time. … It’s nice to have a dedicated space for us to say ‘this is funded’.” (Project paralegal)
Project challenges
All the organisations on this project has delivered this work amid a context of huge organisational shifts, policy crises and other challenges from leadership changes to long-term sick leave. Vauxhall Law Centre’s project took place in the context of media attacks and local hostility to refugees, making the project staff acutely aware of wellbeing concerns for their staff and project collaborators, and at times needing to take measures to keep staff, volunteers and clients safe. These wider impacts have added stress and pressure to staff on the project, slowed things down, but overall describe rather eloquently the level of juggling and cajoling required to develop new ways of working.
This illustrates how other similar organisations can develop transformative work within the chaos of day-to-day and all the pressures we are facing. Of course, funding remains a crucial element in allowing you the space to do this.
The toolkit
Building Strategic Partnerships for Social Justice: A Toolkit for Law Centres, developed as part of this project, is more than a manual: it’s a living resource. It invites others in the advice, legal, and community sectors to share learning and build on what works. As public need rises and resources tighten, these kinds of alliances are no longer optional, they’re essential.
The toolkit shows that building effective strategic legal partnerships is as much about mindset as method. It requires trust, openness and a willingness to learn from missteps. It also asks Law Centres to balance long-term systemic goals with the immediate demands of casework – a tension many will recognise.
Individual casework must remain properly resourced. However, when resources are focused only on responding case by case, the systemic change that communities need can remain out of reach. We hope this toolkit makes the case – and provides the tools – for something more ambitious. As Sue Lukes, Bella Kosmala, and Emma Bates, the authors of the toolkit and evaluators of the project, note:
Healthy, cohesive, empowered communities are those where people believe that justice is within reach.
A living tool for a shifting landscape
As the pressures on access to justice intensify, the hub model offers a hopeful direction. It shows that lasting change happens not only through litigation, but in the relationships that make justice reachable, real, and rooted in community.
Access the toolkit here. To contribute your experience to future editions, contact the Law Centres Network.
Laura is Strategic Projects and Policy Officer at the Law Centres Network.