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A professionally supervised service, offering free legal advice and assistance from our Law students and academics. Make a real impact in practical law and offer your expertise to those in need.
The Clinic offers a free and professional service focusing on areas where people may find it difficult to find or afford other legal services. For example, wills are something we commonly support people with. You can read more about the importance of wills here.
At the same time, the Clinic provides an opportunity for students to gain valuable real-life experience and put theory into practice. Everything that the Clinic does is overseen by an experienced solicitor, ensuring a consistently high-standard of legal advice throughout.
This information is for anyone who is looking to use our services at the Law Clinic or who has already enquired with us.
Whilst we do have limited capacity at this time, we are able to accept new enquiries to our waiting list.
Please use the form at the bottom of the page to submit your enquiry to us and our Legal Administrator will be in touch to take further details to ensure we are able to assist. If we are unable to assist at this time then we shall, where possible, provide details of alternative services that you may wish to consider.
If you have already enquired with us then you will remain on our waitlist until we have a student advisor available to assist you. This could take several weeks but we'll update you as soon as possible. The Law Clinic operates on a part-time basis so it will inevitably take much longer for us to deal with enquiries than if you were to contact a firm of solicitors. We deal with enquiries in the order that they arrive.
If you have enquired with us but your legal issue has become urgent, then we would advise that you seek alternative legal advice such as from a solicitor or one of the organisations listed below.
If you are an existing client, email law-clinic@sunderland.ac.uk or call 0191 515 2550 (voicemail facility only). If your matter has become urgent such as a court date coming up soon or deteriorating health, we recommend you seek legal assistance elsewhere such as:
Working on real-life family law matters gave me invaluable experience.
The Clinic enabled me to gain real-life experience of practicing law.
My favourite part of the course was working in the Student Law Clinic on live client cases.
This is information for students who are interested in working at the Law Clinic with us.
You can choose to study in Sunderland Student Law Clinic in your final year of your undergraduate studies and all students studying to become a solicitor on our LLM Legal Practice LPC spend at least half a day each week in clinic, meaning that you have the opportunity to graduate with significant live work experience.
Sunderland Student Law Clinic offers advice and assistance in relation to property/land, family/children matters, divorce, employment law, residential housing, residential landlord/tenant, immigration, wills and probate, and lasting power of attorney.
To date, the Law Clinic has provided assistance to over 600 clients and saved around £500,000 in legal costs. The clinic utilises the industry-standard CRM system, CLiO, providing you with an authentic legal practice experience.
If staff decide that a case can be undertaken, the client will be invited to come to the University for an initial interview. The case will be assigned to a student law firm under the supervision of Clinic staff.
The student law firm will conduct an interview with the client to find out essential information about the case. The students will then consult with Clinic staff to decide whether the case can be taken on.
Research will be undertaken into the client’s legal issues surrounding the case. The student law firm will then create a letter of advice which will be sent to the client instructing on a suitable course of action.
Gold Award for the Sunderland Student Law Clinic in the Law Works Law School Challenge 2023.
Students of the Sunderland Student Law Clinic were successful in raising over £2,700 for Law Works as part of their Law School Challenge. This saw them win a Gold Award for the Law Clinic and the opportunity to attend an award ceremony at the Houses of Parliament.
As a pro-bono law clinic, we understand the importance of the charitable organisations that are involved in the provision of pro-bono legal advice and how difficult this is without continued funding.
Students of the Law Clinic are again entering the Law School challenge for 2024 and should you wish to support the same please use this link to make a donation. Thank you.
The companies who we work with and who support the Law Clinic.
At the Sunderland Student Law Clinic we are proud to work with many of our local law firms, charitable organisations and other businesses. These partnerships do not only bring professional connections for our Law Students, but also give significant professional experience for our students. We are hugely grateful for all the support we receive from each and every one of the companies we work with.
For example, we are a member of Law Works, a charity working in England and Wales to connect volunteer lawyers with people in need of legal advice who are not eligible for legal aid and cannot afford to pay legal fees.
Toni has worked in legal practice since July 2000, having started her legal career as an office junior and completing her Law Degree and LPC on a part-time basis whilst working full time in a busy City Centre Law Firm in Newcastle. Toni qualified as a Solicitor in May 2011 and has practiced in several different areas of law, including Land, Family, Employment, Private Client (Wills and Probate) and Crime. Toni obtained her Police Station Accreditation to allow her to represent clients in the Police Station and regularly represented clients at Court in both Family and Criminal Proceedings.
Kieran has worked as an Assistant In-House Attorney in the USA, a Clinical Claims Manager & Risk Management Consultant in the City of London, a Litigation Solicitor in Ireland, and most recently as a Trust Solicitor in the NHS. Kieran’s has wide ranging experience in Legal Training and Practice in the areas of Criminal Law, Employment Law, EU Law, Health & Safety Law, Medical Law, as well as Civil Litigation, including Alternative Dispute Resolution and the Coroners Court.
Dr. Kat Langley is a non-practising barrister. Upon completion of the Bar Vocational Course, Kat worked for a large national immigration charity undertaking direct access style casework, and tribunal advocacy. Kat has represented asylum seekers, visa appeals, business immigration clients, student visas, and detained clients. Whilst Kat’s specialist interests are in immigration and asylum, she has also worked across linked areas of mental health and capacity law, family law and a little crime.
Dawn is the first point of contact for many of our clients and is responsible for the general day to day running of the law clinic. Dawn has over 30 years’ experience working in private practice, starting as an office junior, progressing to a secretary, senior legal secretary/PA to a company director, dealing with family cases, property and conveyancing, probate and estates, personal injury, and crime. Dawn has many years experience supporting junior and trainee solicitors in practice and is incredibly supportive of the students in the Law Clinic too.