Strategic Social Justice Clinic and Immigration and Asylum Clinic 2024/25

Warwick Law in the Community

LinC Student Opportunities 2024/25

Applications are now open

Warwick Law in the Community (LinC) is pleased to collaborate with the Central England Law Centre (CELC) to offer students volunteering opportunities with the Strategic Social Justice Clinic (SSJC) as well as the Immigration and Asylum Clinic (I&A) this 2024/25 academic year.

Students can learn more about this year’s opportunities by attending the LinC information session on Tuesday 1 October, 11am-12noon in Oculus OC0.01. If you are unable to attend, you can find all the information you'll need to apply on this webpage and by watching the Introduction to LinC video below.

If you have any questions about the opportunities, please email WarwickLinC@warwick.ac.uk

As a volunteer for Warwick LinC, you are able to claim Core Skills Points towards the Warwick Award.

Eligibility

Opportunities with the Strategic Social Justice Clinic are open to all Warwick law students, both undergraduate and postgraduate. PPL students are also eligible to apply.

Volunteering with the Immigration and Asylum clinic is open to Warwick law students, both undergraduate and postgraduate, except first year undergraduates. PPL students are also eligible to apply.

Students can only volunteer for the SSJC and I&A clinic once, but further opportunities to work with these clinics may be available as part of our associates programme for previous volunteers.

What's Involved?

Students on the Immigration and Asylum Clinic are expected to commit 3-5 hours per week during term time, during both terms 1 and 2. Students will be expected to attend the Central England Law Centre in Coventry once a fortnight. In the week that they are not attending students will work on client cases and do further research.

Students volunteering with the Strategic Social Justice Clinic are expected to commit 3-5 hours per week during term time. Please see the project descriptions for the length of the projects, as some cover both term 1 and term 2. Students will be required to attend regular, small, and large team meetings on campus. The SSJC is held on a Wednesday afternoon between the hours of 12-3pm.

Further information about the work of each clinic can be found below.

How to apply

Students should submit their CV along with a cover letter (of no more than 300 words) in one document to WarwickLinC@warwick.ac.uk

Students should clearly state in their email which opportunity they are applying for.

If you are interested in both opportunities, separate applications should be submitted.

A preference for one can be expressed in your email when submitting the application. Please note that those applying for both the SSJC and I&A will not be accepted for both opportunities. If you are applying to the SSJC please indicate if you are interested in a specific project.

The deadline for applications is 10am on Friday 4 October 2024.

Introduction to LinC

In the video below, LinC Co-directors Dr Tara Mulqueen and Dr Rebecca Munro introduce LinC and the opportunities open to students. They are joined by Emma Austin and Robert Bircumshaw from Central England Law Centre who run our Strategic Social Justice Clinic and our Immigration and Asylum Clinic.

Video transcript

Interviews

Applicants shortlisted will be notified and invitations for interview will be sent via email on:

Monday 7 October

Please note: if invited for interview, we will ask whether you have any reasonable adjustments we can make to help you to attend the interview, or to help you perform at your best.

Group Interviews will take place:

Strategic Social Justice Clinic: On Campus on Tuesday 8 October and Wednesday 9 October
Immigration and Asylum Clinic: At the Central England Law Centre, Coventry on Wednesday 9 October
If you are shortlisted for both clinics, we will ensure you are able to attend both interviews

Successful applicants will be required to attend an induction on:

Strategic Social Justice Clinic: The first session will be held on Wednesday 16 October between 12pm-3pm

Immigration and Asylum Clinic: Induction will be held at the Central England Law Centre, Coventry on Friday 11 October, 12pm-2pm.

Strategic Social Justice Clinic

You can read about this year's SSJC projects below.

Term 1: Disability Discrimination Project

Disability Discrimination Project – Term One Project

Project Background

Central England Law Centre (‘CELC’) aims to create a fairer, more just society, by embedding legal rights in its communities to reduce inequalities, challenge unfair systems and advance social justice through legal advice and education. We do thisby: (i) delivering specialist social welfare legal advice and representation to people who are marginalised, disadvantaged and discriminated against; (ii) providing holistic advice and support and identifying interrelated legal issues to prevent them from reaching crisis point; (iii) creating a range of referral pathways so people are able to access legal advice at an earlier stage and (iv) sharing our knowledge internally across teams and externally with our partners and clients by Public Legal Education to support people to understand their rights and how to use the law to enforce them.

Although we are the biggest Law Centre in the country, demand for CELC’s services far outstrips our capacity. To ensure we are targeting our resources most effectively to support those in greatest need, we prioritise legal work falling under certain overarching themes. In a recent review of our services, it was decided that, as a Law Centre, we would like to do more direct work to combat discrimination in our communities. We have, accordingly, agreed that ‘Challenging Discrimination’ should become one of the overarching themes under which we focus our work. As a very significant proportion ofCELC’s client-base are disabled/have long term health conditions (as at 2020/2021 66% of CELC’s clients were disabled compared to a national figure of just 17% within the English population), we are keen to understand the nature and extent of everyday discrimination in access to public services faced by those with non-visible disabilities in our communities.

The Disability Discrimination Project will (i) scope potentially discriminatory policies, processes and practices affecting people with non-visible disabilities in *homelessness and housing allocation, *disability benefit applications and *access to social care provision; (ii) identify and explore with disabled people and disability rights organisations, through qualitative research, particular issues of concern within these fields; (iii) analyse emerging issues through application of discrimination law frameworks; and (v) develop and strengthen connections between disabled people, disability rights organisations and CELC, with a view to engendering rights-based collaborative working in the future.

We are planning to recruit 12-15 student volunteers to the Project and are looking for students with the following skills and attributes:

A commitment to social justice.
Good organisational skills and timekeeping.
Strong written and oral communication skills.
Good legal research skills.
Good analytical skills.
Good team working and collaboration.

Term 1 & 2: Regeneration vs Gentrification Project

Regeneration vs Gentrification Project – Term One and Term Two

Project Background

Central England Law Centre (‘CELC’), like other Law Centres, works with the most vulnerable and marginalised sectors of society, with the vast majority of our clients in Coventry and Birmingham living in poverty and experiencing multiple-disadvantage. As at Census Day in 2021, 14% of Coventry’s residents and 43% of Birmingham’s population lived in neighbourhoods ranked in the top 10% most deprived neighbourhoods in England. CELC frequently represents clients living in sub-standard accommodation, often in a poor state of disrepair and/or which falls below legal standards. Many of CELC’s clients struggle to access stable accommodation at all, due to acute shortfalls in social housing and affordable private rented sector accommodation within their communities.

Birmingham City Council and Coventry City Council are currently undertaking urban regeneration projects in 3 discreet areas of deprivation within CELC’s localities. Whilst, these projects clearly have the potential to improve access to good quality accommodation in these areas, CELC is concerned there is the real risk of displacement of many due to (i) the nature and extent of the redevelopment schemes, (ii) the (arguably) insufficient levels of new social housing provided therein and (iii) the impact redevelopment is likely to have on the affordability of these areas more generally (including on private sector rents). CELC is concerned regeneration may lead to gentrification of these areas, driving poor, marginalised and vulnerable people from their homes and communities.

The Regeneration vs Gentrification Project will (i) consider the regeneration plans for these 3 areas in detail; (ii) identify legal problems that commonly impact disadvantaged residents during regeneration schemes; (iii) explore with local residents, through qualitative research, particular issues of concern for them; (iv) reflect on appropriate strategic legal responses to emerging issues; and (v) develop connections with networks of affected people/groups/organisations within these areas.

We are planning to recruit 12-15 student volunteers to the Project. We are looking for students with the following skills and attributes:

A commitment to social justice.
Good organisational skills and timekeeping.
Strong written and oral communication skills.
Good legal research skills.
Good analytical skills.
Good team working and collaboration.

Term 2: Race, Sex and Age Discrimination Project

Race, Sex and Age Discrimination Project – Term Two Project

Project Background

CELC, like other Law Centres, works with the most vulnerable and marginalised sectors of society, with the vast majority of our clients in Coventry and Birmingham living in poverty and many experiencing multiple-disadvantage connected with protected characteristics. We are keen to understand the nature and extent of everyday discrimination faced by those in our communities with the protected characteristics of Race, Sex and Age.

The Race, Sex and Age Discrimination Project will (i) scope potentially discriminatory policies, processes and practices affecting people with protected characteristics in our communities; (ii) undertake qualitative research with people with protected characteristics and advocates from frontline organisations to identify particular issues of concern; (iii) analyse emerging issues through application of discrimination law frameworks; and (iv) develop and strengthen connections between people with protected characteristics, advocates from frontline organisations and CELC, with a view to engendering rights-based collaborative working in the future.

We are planning to recruit 12-15 student volunteers to the project and are looking for students with the following skills and attributes:

A commitment to social justice.
Good organisational skills and timekeeping.
Strong written and oral communication skills.
Good legal research skills.
Good analytical skills.
Good team working and collaboration.

Immigration and Asylum Clinic

Students will be working with the Immigration and Asylum team at Central England Law Centre. The team has solicitors working in Birmingham and Coventry and this role will be with the Coventry team.

Students will be working to help clients obtain legal aid through our Exceptional Case Funding (ECF) clinic, so they can be assisted with their immigration applications/appeals. Students will receive training in some aspects of immigration law, particularly around making human rights applications and will certainly improve their interviewing and drafting skills as well as knowledge of legal aid. Students will also take instructions from clients requiring one off immigration advice and will research and draft advice under supervision. Full training will be provided.

We will also be asking students to undertake diverse and ad hoc research tasks for ongoing cases, and we intend for all of you to be working on at least one appeal matter, with the expectation that you will be able to attend the First-tier Tribunal or the Upper Tribunal of the Immigration and Asylum Chamber, together with one of our solicitors or counsel. You may even be asked to help draft a skeleton argument!

It is important that students are fully committed to the placement as it enables us to provide more legal advice to more people. Students should certainly have an interest in social welfare law and perhaps be thinking of an alternative legal career!

Qualifying Work Experience for the Solicitors Qualifying Examination (SQE)

Please note that hours volunteered for the Immigration and Asylum Clinic can be counted towards your two years of necessary Qualifying Work Experience as part of the SQE.