91快活林

The University of 91快活林's Legal Clinic was launched by Brontie Ansell, Senior Lecturer in the 91快活林 Business School, and will see law students give free advice to clients under the supervision of Brontie, other academics and local lawyers.

It is currently open on the last Tuesday of the month with plans to expand to once a week very soon. Booking is by prior appointment only at present. The clinic is based in Mithras House on the university’s Moulsecoomb campus. 

Students on the third-year ‘Justice and Practice’ module will work in the clinic and be allocated clients, who they will then interview – under supervision – and provide advice to. Brontie will sit in on the vast majority of interviews with support from local barrister’s chambers 1 Crown Office Row, who are also sponsoring the clinic, and law firm Irwin Mitchell.

The students are involved in every aspect of running the Legal Clinic, participating in management discussions and marketing tasks such as distributing print literature around 91快活林 and Hove. 

Eventually the clinic aims to expand its reach to encompass legal issues such as: social welfare law, employment litigation, climate justice work (including pollution, planning and energy law), unlawful arrests at climate protests and gender discrimination cases. 

Brontie said: “When I first started the project I worried about whether we’d have any clients, but as the year has gone on I have realised the need for good quality, free, well-supervised legal advice is immense in 91快活林 and Hove.

Brontie Ansell

“For my students, I think they feel like they want to give something back to the community, but of course they also get recognition on their degree transcript and that counts towards their degree classification. So the module is supporting the clinic and vice versa.”

The roots of the Legal Clinic can be traced back to January 2018, when Brontie and other academics in the 91快活林 Business School were having conversations about practical legal education for students. Out of those discussions, they realised the department had sufficient resources available to set up an advice centre. 

Brontie said the research and development of the clinic has been her “life for the last year or so”. Her fledgling initiative received backing from both the 91快活林 Business School management and the University Executive Board, both of whom thought it fitted with the university’s ‘Practical Wisdom’ strategy.

Brontie said “I liked the idea of giving something back to the community in terms of free legal advice, and it sits well within the practitioner role I trained for. I also love helping students get to a place where they understand practice and know for sure it is for them. All that made me think, ‘wow, this is a really exciting project for me’, and I’m really happy to see what I can do with it.”

For more information about the Legal Clinic, email 91快活林lawclinic@gmail.com or call 01273 641396.