FLAG
The Birmingham Free Legal Advice Group (FLAG), is a clinic run by the University out of The Exchange, in Birmingham city centre.
FLAG offers advice in the following areas:
- Family and divorce law
- Wills and probate
- Employment
- Consumer/Contract/Commercial law
- Landlord and Tenant
Clients contact FLAG because they have a legal problem in one of the above areas. In pairs, student volunteers interview their client. The students then spend the following two weeks researching the issue and drafting a letter of advice to the client. The student volunteers are supervised throughout this project by one of the Law School’s supervising solicitors, or by professional volunteers from Mills & Reeve LLP, Shakespeare Martineau LLP or No 5 Chambers.
Birmingham FLAG empowers law students by giving them the opportunity to take an active role in responding to the legal aid cuts and helping to resolve legal problems. Volunteering with FLAG develops students’ interviewing skills, communication skills, and legal research and writing skills.
Birmingham FLAG
Freedom Law Clinic
This project provides an opportunity for students to work on appeals through the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), where individuals believe that they have been wrongfully convicted of a crime.
Students work in groups on an individual CCRC application which usually involves serious crime and often a complex set of legal questions, such as causation, joint enterprise or disclosure. All casework is completed remotely, using online technology to share your work, and is supervised by an experienced criminal law solicitor based in London.
Students have full access to extensive case papers, and therefore gain genuine insight into all aspects of criminal defence work, alongside the opportunity to conduct their own targeted legal research, develop specific legal knowledge and put this into practice by drafting materials to support the CCRC application and communicate with their client. The casework is accompanied by a comprehensive online lecture programme relevant to the issues in the case.