Solicitor acting for graduate who took unpaid work in government scheme

Who? Jim Duffy, 28, public law and human rights solicitor at Birmingham firm Public Interest Lawyers.

Why is he in the news? Acting in judicial review proceedings brought by Cait Reilly, a 22-year-old graduate who had to give up a vocational internship in a museum to take unpaid work stacking shelves and cleaning in a store under the Jobseeker’s Allowance (Employment, Skills and Enterprise Scheme) Regulations 2011.

Duffy, acting on her behalf, has sent a letter-before-action challenging the regulations that obliged Reilly to leave vocational work experience for a role that offered no training or prospect of advancement.

Thoughts on the case: ‘These “workfare” schemes are blunt instruments with no tailoring to individual skills. They failed in the US, Canada and Australia, yet up to 250,000 people in the UK will, like Cait, be required to spend between two weeks and six months working for nothing, often at massive corporations. Human rights are just a small part of the case - it is really about bad administration and a clumsy attempt to placate sections of the electorate.’

Dealing with the media: ‘The vitriol directed against Cait through the media has been over the top and ignored the lack of any pay and the futility of the work she was made to carry out at the expense of her own, career-building voluntary work.’

Why become a lawyer? ‘The intellectual challenge and the opportunity to play a part in making society fairer.’

Career high: ‘Irate finger-wagging by the Daily Mail, or Ann Widdecombe suggesting that I may be a lunatic.’

Career low: ‘Interviewing my first Iraqi client and seeing how the abuses he had experienced had left him an empty shell of a person.’