Clifford Chance

Clifford Chance commits £73,000 to help legal advice centres facing funding crunch

Leading international law firm Clifford Chance today announced it will commit £73,000 to three legal advice centres to enable them to continue to support vulnerable communities while they adjust to cuts in public grants.

The firm will donate £25,000 to Community Links Advice Services and £24,000 each to the Mary Ward Legal Advice Centre and the University House Legal Advice Centre. The firm has long-standing relationships with all three centres, providing a combination of pro bono support and funding to run their regular free legal advice clinics.

Community Links will use the donation to help cover the cost of its Information, Advice and Guidance Manager, a role that was under threat since the near abolition of legal aid support, to ensure that a team of 12 continue to provide high-quality advice on welfare benefits, housing and debt from the charity's head office and eight other locations in Newham and Camden.

The manager will also be responsible for driving a new ways of delivering advice in the wake of losing nearly half a million pounds in council and legal aid support, such as training residents and non-advice staff in public legal education so they can spot potential legal issues affecting those around them and help them to find the specialist help they need at an early stage.

Mary Ward Legal Advice Centre and University House Legal Advice Centre will use the funds to run their free legal advice clinics. This is in addition to the firm's existing support to both centres, which includes providing eight trainees across the year to Mary Ward so that two dedicated, full-time advisers are always available to provide specialist support to those in need. Clifford Chance also provides free legal advice at University House Legal Advice Centre's weekly clinics, an arrangement that began 10 years ago.

Roger Leese, Clifford Chance's pro bono partner, comments: "Clifford Chance has a long-standing commitment to providing pro bono advice for those in need, but we can't do this effectively unless we can work centres rooted in the communities they serve. This financial support our pro bono partners, and us, to serve those most in need while they strive to find new and sustainable ways of supporting those with no-where else to turn in Austerity Britain."

"The deep cuts imposed on both legal aid and council budgets is a double-whammy for the UK's advice centres. We have already seen one of our pro bono advice partners close as a result and it is difficult to overstate the strain that other advice centres are experiencing."

Sharon Elliott, Head of Advice Services at Community Links adds, 'We are facing the stark challenge of filling the gap left by the demise of local advice agencies. Support from Clifford Chance will enable us to continue to provide legal advice to the most vulnerable members of our community.  We are seeing an increasing number of clients with critical legal problems particularly as they deal with government reform around welfare benefits and we expect this to increase dramatically with the introduction of universal credit.