Public legal education could ease legal advice centres' workload

Public legal education initiatives empowering people to understand legal responsibilities could help reduce the rising workload of legal advice centres, the Attorney General has said.

Dominic Grieve QC was responding to a suggestion by Toynbee Hall's chief executive Graham Fisher during an event marking the charity's 115th anniversary, that the advice sector ought perhaps to take a broader perspective on resolving legal issues.

This should be based not so much on individual cases as they arose but by encouraging public legal education as a preventive means, Fisher said.

"We have an NHS for health but we don't have a public legal health service," Grieve replied. "We should do more to educate members of the public but also teach children about the law and legal rights. "I would need to convince Michael Gove to invest in this," he ventured.

The attorney general said he would welcome a new approach where clients coming to Toynbee Hall - and other advice centres - would also learn about the law and legal rights.

"I would like to see more PLE-type work expanded and that agenda taken forward," he said.

Asked whether it would be realistic to expect school children to engage with legal issues, Grieve replied the idea would be more about teaching core principles.

"I don't see why sixth formers couldn't be taught the general principles, not the details, but the principles," the attorney general said. "After all, this is what we do with jurors every day - putting people in the jury box and asking them to reach decisions in law, and by and large, they come up with the right results."

"If children were taught in schools they would come out better informed," he continued. "And it might make some small contribution to reducing the workload of free legal advice centres."

Fighting social injustice

The attorney general was speaking at the event celebrating the 115th anniversary of Toynbee Hall (#FLAC115), the charity set up in 1884 to fight poverty and social injustice in the East End, which has been providing free legal advice since 1898.

Advice is provided by volunteers, many from nearby City firms but not exclusively, who together will help 4,000 people this year. The expectation following the withdrawal of legal in areas such as family law and welfare is that the numbers will rise to 4,500 next year.

Dominic Grieve was not one of the Toynbee Hall volunteers - as a junior barrister he gave some of his time to the Bar's Pro Bono Unit - but his father was.

The other speaker had a much closer connection with the centre: Sir Nicolas Bratza QC, former British judge and president of the European Court of Human Rights, volunteered for 17 years.

Toynbee Hall, he said had "defied the belief that the growth of legal aid since 1949 would reduce the need for free legal advice."

More than a hundred year since it was set up, Toynbee Hall's free legal advice centre was still "shining as a beacon of hope for the community of East London", said Sir Nicolas, and as we moved into the 21st century, the need for advice in areas such as matrimonial, landlord and tenant, personal injury, crime, neighbour disputes or employment was "as great if not greater than in the 19th century."