Free Legal Advice

Free Legal Advice Service for our community

The Birmingham City University (BCU) Law Clinic is a confidential service offering advice on a wide range of legal issues to the local Birmingham community and more widely.

We bring together students, staff and in-house/ external lawyers to provide advice and assistance on a variety of legal matters.

All the BCU Law Students work under the supervision of qualified lawyers and/or practitioners.

Areas of law we cover

We offer free legal advice on a number of areas of law to those who are not eligible for legal aid and who cannot afford to pay. These include:

• Family
  Cohabitation, separation, finances on separation, divorce, finances on divorce, child arrangements, domestic violence, fertility and modern families.
• Housing
  Disrepair, arrears, possessions and evictions.
• Immigration
  Immigration status, leave to remain queries, asylum applications, KIND- immigration issues relating to undocumented/ unaccompanied minors.
• Welfare Benefits
  Casework limited to PIP appeals. One off advice for other benefit related issues.
• Employment
  Equality and Sex Discrimination, harassment, unfair, wrongful and constructive dismissal.
• Personal Injury
  Accidents at work, road traffic accidents, accidents in public places, serious and life changing injuries, cycling and motorbike accidents, fatal accidents, accidents involving pedestrians and accidents involving defective products.

Who we work with

In order to provide these services we work with a variety of charities, organisations and businesses, including:

• Support Through Court
  BCU students volunteer at the Birmingham Civil and Family Justice Centre in the STC offices or on the Helpline, which is run from the Law Clinic. 
• Central England Law Centre (CELC)
  Staff from the Birmingham CELC run a number of clinics including Welfare Benefits, Employment, Immigration and Housing supported by BCU Students.
• Citizen's Advice
  BCU works with Citizens Advice across the West Midlands, with student volunteers.
• LawWorks
  BCU partners with a number of private practice firms to offer family law advice shadowed by the students.
• BCU Family law Clinic
  BCU operates an in-house Family Law Clinic operated by Fiona Farrell in respect to matters that are pre-litigation (outside the Court process).
• Hodge Jones Allen
  BCU partner with Hodge Jones Allen to run our Personal Injury Clinic.