NEW Warwick LinC Summer 2022 Internship Opportunities

Law in the Community Internship Opportunities - Summer 2022 

This summer Warwick LinC in conjunction with collaborating organisations is offering five new paid internship opportunities with Central England Law Centre, Law for Life: The Foundation for Public Legal Education and Coventry Independent Advice Service.

1. Strategic Public Law Internship - Central England Law Centre

6 weeks, 18 hours per week. Working remotely.

2. Public Law Team Internship - Central England Law Centre

10 weeks, 18 hours per week. Working both remotely and in-person.

3. Legal Information, Research and Evaluation Internship - Law for Life: The Foundation for Public Legal Education

12 Weeks, 18 hours per week. Working remotely.

4. Coventry Independent Advice Service Internship – Coventry Independent Advice Service

12 Weeks, 18 hours per week. In-person.

5. Immigration and Asylum Internship - Central England Law Centre

12 weeks, 18 hours per week. Working in-person.

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Eligibility

All current and past volunteers with Warwick LinC programmes (Strategic Public Law Clinic, CELC’s Immigration and Asylum Clinic, School Exclusions Project) and undergraduate students who have completed the Public Legal Education Module are eligible to apply. We very much hope you will apply for any of the opportunities that are of interest to you, but in the interests of fairness you can only be selected for one.   

You must be based in the UK whilst working as an intern on these projects.

Whilst deciding which internships you would like to apply for, please pay careful attention to whether the internship is remote or in-person.

How to apply

To apply you will need to submit a single document containing:  

· A short CV  

· A covering letter (no more than 500 words) explaining: 

o which opportunities you are interested in  

o what you believe you can contribute to each 

o what you hope to learn from the experience 

· For each role there is also a short task to complete (please see the information related to each internship for details of the required task). You will also need to include this as part of the single document file.   

Please submit your application to: WarwickLinC@warwick.ac.uk before 5pm on Thursday 28 April 2022.

Interviews will take place between Tuesday 3 May- Friday 6 May 2022. 

If you have any questions about these opportunities, please email either:

· Rosie Narayan, Warwick LinC Coordinator: WarwickLinC@warwick.ac.uk

· Tara Mulqueen, Director of Warwick LinC: t.mulqueen@warwick.ac.uk

Please note: LinC Interns will be expected to submit a short reflective piece of writing by the end of September summarising their internship experience.

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1). Strategic Public Law Internship - Central England Law Centre

The role

Central England Law Centre is offering an internship working with their Public Law Strategic Development Lead on a range of strategic projects to maximise the impact of work done by the Strategic Public law Clinic in 2021/22 and as preparatory development work for projects for 2022/23. As the projects relate to real-time, real-life work, it is not possible to say with certainty now what these will be. They are likely to include:

· Working in partnership with the National Association of Welfare Rights Advisers to progress the Clinic’s recommendations to address a systemic unfairness in the process for claiming Universal Credit by those who are unfit for work.

· Implementing strategic action identified from Clinic research currently being undertaken on the impact of the Local Housing Allowance on housing for homeless families.

· Implementing rights-awareness work with organisations promoting food justice.

Internship details

This is a 6-week opportunity offering 18 hours per week (From 4 July 2022- 12 August 2022).
This internship will be remote.
This is a paid internship at an hourly rate of £11.72/hr plus £1.41/hr holiday pay.

We’re looking for someone with:

· Good verbal communication skills

· Ability to communicate clearly and accurately in appropriately structured written formats

· Understanding of the fundamental public law principles

· Good factual and legal research and analytical skills

· Ability to work collaboratively

· Ability to work remotely

Strategic Public Law Internship Application Task

In a maximum of 350 words explain:

1. The meaning of ‘food justice’ to someone who has never come across the idea before and who has had no legal training; and

2. what you think the main cause(s) of food injustice are.

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2). Central England Law Centre Public Law Team Internship – Central England Law Centre

The role

CELC is offering an internship to work with the Public Law Team to create ‘case stories’ from the many examples of our successful work with clients to enforce their legal rights using public law principles to challenge the decision making of public bodies. This will involve:

· Reviewing case file documents in order to create an initial draft.

· Interviewing clients so as to incorporate their views and experiences.

· Where appropriate, liaising with partner organisations to understand the full client journey and how any collaborative work was undertaken.

· To communicate within the case story all of the above plus promote the individual and wider public impact of the work.

Internship details

This is a 10-week opportunity offering 18 hours per week. Dates: July to September 2022 (specific dates to be confirmed with intern).

This internship will be both remote and in-person (the candidate does not need to be based locally but should be able to travel to the CELC offices in Birmingham periodically).

This is a paid internship at an hourly rate of £11.72/hr plus £1.41/hr holiday pay.

We’re looking for someone with:

· Good verbal communication skills

· Ability to communicate clearly and accurately in appropriately structured written formats

· Understanding of the fundamental public law principles

· Good factual and legal research and analytical skills

· Ability to work collaboratively both in-person and remotely

· Ability to translate and communicate complex legal processes in easy to understand language

· Ability to come into the Birmingham office to interview clients

Public Law Team Internship Application Task

Using Document 1 as an example of the structure and style of case story we are looking for, please use Document 2 as the factual and legal basis for a new case story. Please draft a new case story not exceeding 500 words.

We realise that you may not know anything about this area of law. We are not expecting you to undertake any reading or research other than reading the identified material. We don’t expect you to spend more than 1.5 hours completing the task.

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3. Legal Information, Research and Evaluation Internship - Law for Life: The Foundation for Public Legal Education

The role

Law for Life is offering an internship which will give you the opportunity to work with their Research Team and/or their Legal Information Team. This internship will give you a real breadth of understanding of the work done by each of these teams.

You will work with the Law for Life Research Team to assist colleagues in undertaking research. As part of this work you will have the opportunity to be involved in different aspects of the research process. You will help record findings and keep records and accounts of the management of projects. You will carry out literature reviews and contribute towards the writing of academic publications and other policy reports. Other tasks which you may be assigned include investigating and evaluating sources of data for empirical projects and utilising statistical software to support empirical studies relating to law and policy. You may also be asked to support statistical analyses on social science data sets and to compile or update databases and datasets.

You will work with the Law for Life Legal Information Team to provide support related to the Advicenow website. Tasks that may be assigned to you include reviewing information categories (or information available from a particular provider) and making recommendations for the Advicenow website in line with inclusion criteria. You may be asked to monitor or research changes in the law or to produce a checklist summarising a legal process. You will contribute to the development of a new Advicenow guide (or one in need of updating) as a panel member and help to develop a new ‘know-how’ including top tips and possible solutions in collaboration with a member of the Advicenow team. There will be other tasks in a number of areas: communications, social media, monitoring google analytics and website editing.

We will agree the details of the role and the combination of tasks with the successful candidate, according to their skills, experience and interests.

Internship details

This is a 12- week opportunity offering 18 hours per week. Dates: 20 June 2022- 9 September 2022.
This internship will be carried out remotely.
This is a paid internship at an hourly rate of £11.72/hr plus £1.41/hr holiday pay.

We’re looking for someone with:

· Knowledge and interest in the broad range of legal and rights issues affecting the UK public.

· Enthusiasm for the development of information to increase public knowledge and understanding of the law and rights.

· Excellent writing skills in plain English, including the ability to pay close attention to detail and to summarise complex information and communicate clearly to a wide audience.

· Strong IT skills, including a thorough working knowledge of Microsoft Office software, especially Excel, and an ability or willingness to update websites.

· A self-motivated and flexible approach to working independently within a small team.

· Good organisational skills, including ability to organise workload, take responsibility for particular areas of work, work on own initiative and meet agreed deadlines.

· Good verbal communication skills, including a pleasant and friendly telephone manner.

· An understanding of the difficulties faced by disadvantaged people and communities in achieving access to the law and justice.

· An understanding of equal opportunities issues and a commitment to equal opportunities in all aspects of your work.

Legal Information, Research and Evaluation Internship Application Task

As a key part of our research and evaluation process, Law for Life needs to obtain feedback from the people we help through the range of services we provide. This is not just about their satisfaction with Law for Life and the specific service they’ve used, but also to help us evaluate whether we have helped them to achieve better outcomes in their legal issue and if that has helped them improve their legal capabilities.

As part of the application process, please answer the questions below – the task should take approximately 1.5 hours (including time to look at the Law for Life website: www.lawforlife.org.uk).

Your answers should be expressed in bullet points rather than an essay and should not exceed 500 words. Draw upon any knowledge and experience you have of using research skills in a community setting.

Task: You are designing a short service user feedback survey of people using one of our Advicenow guides (you can choose which one - https://www.advicenow.org.uk/advicenow-guides). This would be situated at the end of the guide and would be online. There is already a link at the end of all Advicenow guides for people to complete detailed feedback surveys but these are generic to all our guides. What we are hoping to do is to ask people to complete a much shorter survey (max 5-6 questions) that is specific to particular guides and encourages more people to respond and provide us with valuable information about how the guide has helped them

1. What do you need to take into consideration when designing this survey?

2. What audience do you think this should be aimed at and how will that affect the questions you ask?

3. What sort of questions are most effective in online surveys?

4. What challenges are you likely to face in obtaining feedback from Law for Life service users in this way?

5. Please tell us about any experience you have to date that you think would help you in obtaining feedback from service users. (This can include experience from within or outside your degree course.)

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4. Coventry Independent Advice Service Internship – Coventry Independent Advice Service

The role

This internship will give you the opportunity to get involved in a number of different areas of the work of the Coventry Independent Advice Service. You will be able to undertake tasks in a combination of the areas outlined below.

Supporting clients with PIP claims

To complete claim forms for Personal Independence Payment with clients, either face to face or over the telephone (please note there is currently no online claim form, so candidates would need to complete a word document which is sent to the client.) Full training in completing the claim form and an overview of the PIP assessment process and criteria will be given. This will be followed by mentoring and continuing supervision. You will also help to submit appeals online for clients challenging decisions about PIP, child DLA and other social security benefits. This can be by phone or face to face.

Assisting caseworkers at Social Supermarkets (locations are currently Foleshill and Canley)

This role is flexible and reactive, depending on the needs of clients. It is likely to include some or all of the following:

· Gathering information to enable a benefit check.

· Gathering information about income, expenditure, and debts for debt advice purposes.

· Assisting clients to get online to look at their UC journals and helping them to report changes in circumstances online or add a note to their journal.

· Completing simple online application forms, e.g., Blue Badge application.

· Signposting to other help and advice, for example, housing advice.

Dealing with enquiries and referrals made via the CIAS website

CIAS receive many referrals and enquiries via our web enquiry form. Partner agencies can refer their clients for help or people can self-refer. CIAS deals with benefits and debts. Often the enquiries fall outside of this remit, in which case CIAS provides information and can signpost or refer to other resources or other agencies. You will support the team to field client queries and ensure clients receive the information they need.

A project looking at CIAS referrals and analysing requests for advice

CIAS would like to better understand the enquiries and referrals coming through, to help reduce the number of inappropriate contacts. You would be responsible for examining enquiries and recording the types of contacts. You would then analyse the data and produce statistical information showing where referrals come from and referral types. Information gathered would inform our ongoing liaison work with partners and how we cascade information to the public.

Internship details

This is a 12- week opportunity offering 18 hours per week. Dates: 20 June 2022- 9 September 2022.
This internship will require in-person working at locations in Coventry.
This is a paid internship at an hourly rate of £11.72/hr plus £1.41/hr holiday pay.

Please note that due to the nature of the different areas of work, the intern on this project may be required to be at more than one location a week.