Why the Justice First Fellowship?
The context
“We were losing ground, far more than we were gaining. Everything was so grim for a long time. JFF was this light in the middle of all that.”
— Denise McDowell, Director of Greater Manchester Immigration Aid Unit on the landscape when we first launched the fellowship in 2014
The Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 has had a devastating impact on the legal aid sector. It removed many social welfare issues from the scope of legal aid, delaying access for many other issues until they reached a crisis point.
Since its introduction in 2013, according to government figures, half of all law centres and nonprofit legal advice services in England and Wales have closed, leaving millions of people with no access to affordable legal advice and representation.
This act became law in the same year we were founded, and alongside withdrawal of funding for training contracts, we knew that the survival of the social welfare legal sector was at serious risk.
We could not see where the next generation of social justice lawyers was going to come from which is why we founded the Justice First Fellowship in 2014.
The training need
“There is a massive emphasis on doing commercial and corporate activities when you’re going through law school and then to find a community who actually share your passion for using law as an instrument for good was great.”
— JFF fellow, 2017 cohort
We know that law schools are not giving students enough training in social welfare and human rights law. This, coupled with the scarcity of training contracts at law centres and other legal aid providers, means that aspiring lawyers are not being supported or encouraged to pursue social justice law.
Yet we know that this is a vibrant, fast-moving and rewarding area of law and so we wanted to open up career opportunities in this vital sector.
Finally, we also had to acknowledge the difficult nature of this type of legal work and the emotional, financial and physical toll that it can take on those supporting individuals and communities facing injustice.
To address all of these factors, we designed the fellowship holistically, to support the long-term sustainability of the social justice sector, knowing that its future leaders need to be equipped with more than just legal skills in order to maintain a successful career in the field.
The impact so far
“There were limits to what I could do and where I could go without a qualification and until JFF got involved the law centre hadn’t offered training contracts for a couple of years. JFF provided the opportunity, personally and professionally, to better myself.”
— JFF fellow, 2020 cohort
Our first nine fellows started their training contracts in early 2015. Since we began, other funders and law firms have helped fund the fellowship, enabling 125 fellows to qualify to date, with another 34 currently on the programme.
qualified fellows
current fellows
Almost all qualified fellows (97%) are in roles using the law for public benefit, while three in four (75%) are using the law for social change. Almost half of these are working in specialist nonprofit legal organisations, many at the same host organisations where they first became fellows.
Our fellows have trained at 74 different host organisations across the UK, from local law centres and firms to national charities. Hosts include organisations like Disability Law Service, Dundee Law Centre, Just for Kids Law and Law Centre Northern Ireland.