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17 July 2019
Issue: 7849 / Categories: Legal News , Legal aid focus
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Law centre forced to close

Lambeth Law Centre has closed with immediate effect due to lack of funds.

The trustees said this week the centre ‘has faced financial pressures caused by legal aid cuts and increased operating costs.

‘To some degree this was relieved with generous support from our charitable funders, who have understood the need in the community and helped us address it.

‘However, ultimately the funding shortfall, together with issues with VAT calculations, have put the Law Centre in an impossible financial position.’

The law centre opened in Brixton, London in 1981 and covered debt, welfare benefits, community care, employment, discrimination, housing, immigration and public law as well as collaborating with other organisations to tackle poverty and disadvantage.

Nimrod Ben-Cnaan, head of policy and profile at the Law Centres Network (LCN), said Lambeth Law Centre ‘has had a proud record of service to south Londoners priced out of justice’ and the LCN had worked hard to help it avoid closure. 

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Secondments, disciplinary procedures and appeal chaos all feature in a quartet of recent rulings. Writing in NLJ this week, Ian Smith, barrister and emeritus professor of employment law at UEA, examines how established principles are being tested in modern disputes
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Fresh proposals to criminalise ‘nudification’ apps, prioritise cyberflashing and non-consensual intimate images, and even ban under-16s from social media have reignited debate over whether the Online Safety Act 2023 (OSA 2023) is fit for purpose. Writing in NLJ this week, Alexander Brown, head of technology, media and telecommunications, and Alexandra Webster, managing associate, Simmons & Simmons, caution against reactive law-making that could undermine the Act’s ‘risk-based and outcomes-focused’ design
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