About the Advice Centre

The University of Greenwich Legal Advice Centre has been established to enable students studying law at the University to obtain practical legal experience.

What you can expect from the Legal Advice Centre

Volunteer lawyers advise verbally at interview and a short summary of your advice is confirmed in writing usually within 10 days of your interview. If we cannot advise you on your case for whatever reason we will let you know and provide you with relevant referral sources.

Our students are trained but not professionally qualified. They will be working under the close supervision of fully qualified lawyers. Our lawyers are either University of Greenwich staff, or volunteers. All volunteers are covered by our insurance and provide advice on behalf of the University of Greenwich Legal Advice Centre.  The Centre's aim is to provide a high standard of service like that offered by any solicitors' practice. Amongst other things we will:

• Put your interests first when advising you
• Be polite and considerate in our dealings with you
• Make every effort to provide relevant and realistic advice in plain language
• Treat all clients fairly, and not discriminate against anyone. You can contact us for a copy of the University's diversity policy
• Obtain your consent to take your data and comply with data protection law in relation to its retention
• Keep your information confidential; we cannot disclose any of your personal information or details about your case to anyone without your written permission
• Take all steps to ensure that your personal information is not passed to any unauthorised persons
• Refuse to advise anyone else if doing so could compromise your confidentiality
• Not normally advise clients who have already instructed a solicitor on the same matter

Please note that other legal and professional duties may occasionally affect our ability to meet all these standards. For example, the solicitor's duty to the Court or Tribunal can override our duty to keep your information confidential or the duty to put your interests first.

We have a legal duty to disclose money laundering or illegal acts.

What service can the centre offer?

We provide an advice only service. This means that we cannot represent you or undertake casework on your behalf. We can however, offer you a further appointment at our discretion; this will depend on the circumstances of your case. We cannot guarantee that you are seen by the same group who initially advised you.

What will it cost?

The service we provide is free. However, you should be aware of the following points:

• You may be eligible for legal aid, and if you are the Centre may refer you to other solicitors who offer this service. We do not provide recommendations to firms. If you are eligible for legal aid you may be liable to pay a contribution.  You may also be liable to repay your costs from any money or property recovered
• If you decide to pursue legal proceedings, you may be ordered to pay the costs of your opponent if you lose your case
• The Centre cannot brief barristers on your behalf

Insurance

The Centre has insurance cover provided by the University's Insurers. If the Centre is negligent in the handling of your case, you will be covered by this insurance and we will be under a duty to advise you of the possibility of a claim should such circumstances  arise.

What if I wish to make a complaint?

We hope you will be satisfied with the service provided by the Centre. If you have a concern about your case, in the first instance, you should write to Beverley Witter, the Supervising Lawyer, who will deal your complaint.  If you are dissatisfied with her response, or your complaint concerns the service delivered by the Supervising Lawyer, you can request that the matter be investigated by the Head of the Department of Law at the University of Greenwich. Once your complaint has been investigated you can contact the Legal Ombudsman if you remain dissatisfied. Further details will be given on request.

Contacting us

You can contact us by telephone or email or in writing. We will get back to you as soon as possible usually within 48 hours.

Who is responsible for your case?

Your case will be allocated to two Student Advisors who will work on your case.The lawyer who will supervise your case will be Beverley Witter.

Ending our agreement

You can ask us to stop working for you at any time by contacting us in writing normally by email.

We can only decide to stop working for you for a good reason, for example; there is a conflict of interest, your case becomes too complex for students, it is clear that you have lost confidence in how we are carrying out your work or there is no educational benefit to the students in continuing to work on the case. If this situation occurs, we will give you reasonable notice in writing that we will stop working for you.

Privacy notice

We obtain personal information from you when you approach our service, including your name, e-mail address, postal address, phone numbers and brief details about your case. We need this information in order to be able to deliver our services to you. These services include responding to your initial enquiry to tell you whether we can help you and providing free legal advice to you.

You can provide this information either by phone, or by email or in writing. We will then contact you to let you know whether we can help. Once your appointment is agreed, we share your information with the volunteer lawyer and student advisers who are handling your case. We send your information using password protection and ask all volunteers to agree to follow our data protection policy.

By providing us with your personal information, you acknowledge and consent to the Legal Advice Centre processing your personal information in accordance with the purposes as laid out in our full privacy statement.

If you have any queries in relation to how your rights are upheld, you can contact Peter Garrod, the University of Greenwich Data Protection Officer and University Secretary. Email: compliance@gre.ac.uk

What we would like you to do

Please can you:

• give us clear instructions about your case and up to date contact details promptly
• provide us with essential documentation
• ask us if you are unclear about anything
• docu-sign our client care information agreement which we will send to you via CLIO (our case management system)

Useful information about solicitors and the way they work can be found on the Law Society's website.