Birmingham Law Centre faces the axe after a century
Britain’s second biggest city could be without a law centre by the end of this month unless funding can be found to keep it afloat.
Birmingham Law Centre is descended from bodies that have offered free legal advice and representation for nearly 100 years.
Its five solicitors and 15 paralegal and support staff assist around 2,000 clients a year. The board of trustees last week concluded that unless the centre’s financial situation changes dramatically it may not be able to remain open past the end of January.
The centre receives no local authority funding. Representatives lobbied councillors yesterday and will meet the leader of Birmingham City Council, Albert Bore, next week to ask for help.
But the council is facing its own financial crisis, including a possible £200m bill for sex discrimination claims following the Supreme Court’s equal pay ruling in October last year.
Birmingham Law Centre’s chief executive, Pete Lowen, said that legal aid cuts were having a massive impact on the centre’s finances. He told the Gazette that the centre has applied for housing and immigration contracts, which begin in April, but needs funds to tide it over until then.
Lowen said that the centre ‘has a robust plan for a viable future, but we may not have enough time to implement it because of our current position’.
Patron and Labour peer Lord Hunt of Kings Heath of said: ‘It is almost impossible to contemplate the demise of an organisation that is so important to so many people in their fight to lift themselves out of poverty, debt and homelessness. We are working hard to try and secure sustainable funding but the cuts to legal support for some of our most vulnerable are proving exceptionally challenging.’
If the centre was to close, Birmingham would be the only city in the UK unable to provide free access to expert legal help for its most vulnerable citizens, Hunt said.
Julie Bishop, director of the Law Centres Network, said: ‘BLC is a big and much-needed centre. There is no other law centre in Birmingham, which is the second biggest city in the country and has huge areas of deprivation.’
She told the Gazette: ‘What’s happening to Birmingham will happen to other centres too, I’m sure. We are holding our breath; we know some centres won’t survive, but we don’t know which they’ll be.’
Bishop added: ‘While we face the year with trepidation, we’re planning to continue serving clients as well as we can within the limited resources.’
The law centre has started an online petition.
Comments
Birmingham Law Centre due to Close
Being a trustee of a voluntary sector organisation and a solicitor myself, I can relate to this. Labour's big promises mean nothing if this law centre is allowed to close. The ironic thing is, now that people in huge numbers need this law centre more than ever beofre, it might shut down. Labour put us in this mess and now we need to appeal to a Labour council to help save it. Birmingham Law Society and other Birmingham organisation should all chip in to save the Birmingham Law Centre, this effects everyone.
It sets the tone of 2013 to see more dire news like this. Such a shame.
Birmingham Law Centre - comment by Ravinder Singh Chumber
Sorry - just remind me how Labour caused the Banks' reckless behaviour and hence the global financial crisis. Did I miss something? This closure is a direct, and predictable, effect of the current Government's objective of closing off justice and support to all but the wealthy. By the way I am NOT a Labour party voter
Birmingham Law Centre
Cui bono? As someone who worked for several years in an advice centre in London I must say that I agree with Rav. As soon as the local council fell into conservative hands it was curtains for us. The current government is intent on slashing citizen's legal rights in all areas, especially those of citizens in the lower income brackets, not their natural voters, this is quite obviously the result.
Amendment
Sorry, I agree with PROVINCIAL
The irony of it
How ironic that the BLC is facing closure partly because of the Council's liability to pay a huge legal bill submitted by the lawyers acting on the equal pay claim.
No doubt this was funded by another extortionate CFA. Perhaps the solicitors involved might consider donating a substantial portion of their `success fee' to fund this rather more worthy cause?
And surely Albert Bore can't be a genuine name? It sounds like something out of Monty Python (an ancient televisual comedy series for those of a younger generation).
Pro Bono, your comment is
Pro Bono, your comment is ridiculous. Should equal pay claims not be pursued then? How should they be funded?
If you are all really
If you are all really fighting for "citizen's rights" rather than your own self interest - why don't you all volunteer for more pro bono work - problem solved.
Facile
Even if we all did pro bono work we would not meet the required demand. In any event what is required is justice and appropriate access to it, not charity.
Cuts and more cuts
The cuts in public and local services have not even began to bite yet. The court service is to be frank - knackered. LIP's will be swarming over the courts come June and there will be strikes.
If there are no free advice services then lower income people will just not bother as they will not pay for access to justice themselves. the one good thing is it might stop pointless contact disputes where one parent uses legal aid to stop the other seeing the kids. Hopefully more people will have their heads smacked together in mediation.
Incidentally IFA's now have to start charging fees instead of hiding costs of financial products in commissions. I wonder how many people will stop obtaining financial advice if they have to pay a fee!
Smacking heads together?
I am a family lawyer. Am very good & experienced & am only paid slightly more than the benefit cap!
I do contact & also domestic violence cases. When legal aid goes, people will 'sort it out' themselves. If we are not around when it gets rough, they won't go to mediation, they don't now, - no, women will withdraw children so they become afraid of their fathers & fathers will take matters into their own hands & smacking of heads will happen with its devastating results & more deaths than we already have
Potter-Hide- re:' Hopefully
Potter-Hide- re:' Hopefully more people will have their heads smacked together in mediation.'
Remember even mediation is not free. And no legal aid.
It's OK
because Richard Susskind is now predicting in The Times this week that we will all provide pro bono advice to the poor over the internet. So that's alright then.
Birmingham Law Centre
As a solicitor working in Hackney Law Centre and fighting on all fronts to keep our Centre going: continuing to take on cases with no guarantee of legal aid funding after April, increasing efficiency in Legal Aid Billing, obtaining continuing support from our Council, running training courses to advice agencies I am horrified at the thought of our sister organisation in Birmingham closing.
I recently worked closely with one of their advisors on a potential class action so mothers of British children awaiting clarification on their right to reside in the UK can continue to claim benefits and supoprt themselves and their children and was extremely impressed by his dedication, breadth of knowledge and commitment to his clients.
It is the Tory Government who have slashed civil Legal Aid income with impunity, and, coupled with their cuts to benefits, to the Health Service and to our emergency services and civil service providers will reap the results in years to come: as foretold by a senior Executive for the Red Cross on Monday, there will be more riots on our streets shortly, unless steps are taken to end their systematic destruction of the welfare state.
Closure of law centres
This is likely to be the first of many voluntary legal organisations going to the wall this year. The disproportionate 77% cut to the legal aid of law centres and legal advice centres by Ken Clarke and Lord McNally is what is behind this.
Social welfare law legal aid is disappearing for immigration, most of debt, large areas of housing, employment, education and welfare benefits from April 2013. At every level from first instance to the Supreme Court legal aid is disappearing. 650,000 people losing access to justice with the Courts and Tribunals about to be clogged up with litigants in person; a catastrophe for justice in the making.
Pro bono cannot begin to plug the gap as specialist legal expertise is lost in these areas.
Victorian values
I was so angered by this dismal news yesterday that I unwisely posted a fatuous "satirical" comment that has since been removed.
The closure encapsulates the way this country is moving in what officially passes for public morality ( including respect for the law ) coming from the top for people to emulate - spinning backwards, backwards, backwards, until all we are left with are well-meaning "social reformers" wringing their hands as they have done for the previous 180 years to greater or lesser effect (and regrettably, making fatuous satirical comments).
A far more rigorous and militant response is needed to preserve values such as the Rule of Law.
Victorian values
Daniel, I agree that a far more rigorous and militant response is needed to preserve values such as the Rule of Law. The Law Soc have shown themselves to be utterly useless in preserving access to justice for the most vulnerable people in our society. At least our scottish cousins have shown a bit more gumption in their response to changes in Legal Aid! South of the boarder, the only response from the legal profession has been wringing of hands a postulating.
Legal Funding for Mediation
To correct another's comment, legal funding for mediation WILL remain. But mediation is NOT about 'smacking heads' together - rather helping former partners to come to a properly informed and voluntarily reached agreement. Not suitable in all cases, of course eg ongoing domestic violence, but successful in many cases for those who are prepared to try it.
Advice and Justice
So-called 'New' Labour began the process and the politically indistinguishable coalition have continued to eat away at access to justice and make it little more than a sick joke.
As a former voluntary advisor with a very well-known organisation, I am familiar with trying to advise often very distressed people with limited resources.
It is not a great stretch to foresee a future in which free advice is virtually unavailable and anyone with an average income will be denied access to both legal advice and justice