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Legal life changers

27 April 2018 / Fiona Bawdon
Issue: 7790 / Categories: Features , Legal aid focus , Training & education
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The Justice First Fellowship scheme is using law to change the world, says Fiona Bawdon

At The Legal Education Foundation’s (TLEF)’s February 2018 Justice First Fellowship (JFF) conference when the 20 newly appointed trainee solicitor and barrister fellows stood up to introduce themselves, two spoke of their personal experience of homelessness. Around half of those applying to the fellowship scheme in 2017 came from families where their parents had not been to university; a quarter of applicants had received free school meals; around half were from ethnic minorities.

The 2017 intake was the scheme’s fourth and largest. Earlier cohorts have included at least one teenage mum; and the first woman from a Roma background to qualify as a solicitor, Denisa Gannon (pictured with chair of TLEF trustees Guy Beringer). In an interview with The Guardian earlier this year, Denisa said it was the discrimination she faced in her native Czech Republic and when she arrived in the UK to work as a cleaner, which inspired her to become a social welfare lawyer. ‘I

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MOVERS & SHAKERS

DWF—19 appointments

DWF—19 appointments

Belfast team bolstered by three senior hires and 16 further appointments

Cadwalader—Andro Atlaga

Cadwalader—Andro Atlaga

Firm strengthens leveraged finance team with London partner hire

Knights—Ella Dodgson & Rebecca Laffan

Knights—Ella Dodgson & Rebecca Laffan

Double hire marks launch of family team in Leeds

NEWS
Bea Rossetto of the National Pro Bono Centre makes the case for ‘General Practice Pro Bono’—using core legal skills to deliver life-changing support, without the need for niche expertise—in this week's NLJ
Charlie Mercer and Astrid Gillam of Stewarts crunch the numbers on civil fraud claims in the English courts, in this week's NLJ. New data shows civil fraud claims rising steadily since 2014, with the King’s Bench Division overtaking the Commercial Court as the forum of choice for lower-value disputes
Artificial intelligence may be revolutionising the law, but its misuse could wreck cases and careers, warns Clare Arthurs of Penningtons Manches Cooper in this week's NLJ
Small law firms want to embrace technology but feel lost in a maze of jargon, costs and compliance fears, writes Aisling O’Connell of the Solicitors Regulation Authority in this week's NLJ
Writing in NLJ this week, Victoria Rylatt and Robyn Laye of Anthony Gold Solicitors examine recent international relocation cases where allegations of domestic abuse shaped outcomes
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