Balancing the civil legal aid budget with access to justice is the classic legal dilemma. Strathclyde University Law Clinic has hit on a model that provides real justice to those who fall beneath the thresholds. Their interventions are life changing, profound and invisible, and the team can end the access to justice dilemma tomorrow but only if you remember what law is about, and help them.

Most logical, pragmatic and yes, even commercially minded people will, if you ask them, agree with the maxim that social wealth should come from each according to his abilities, and given to each according to his needs, even if they don’t align themselves with the philosophy of its originator, Karl Marx. In the field of law there is a brutal interregnum between the idealism of that sentiment and its execution, a period when the pure product of legal training -the trainee- becomes a necessarily commercial entity and, in some cases, whether by inertia, direct pressure, apathy or even bullish cynicism, leaves behind the pure ideals and notions of justice that may have driven them into law in the first place.

Even Atticus Finch only seemed to have one case to deal with at any one time. In a busy law firm there is no such luxury, and there are few places where law can be practiced in the utopian fashion that allows practitioners to hunt down every lead and put justice before commercial or billable expediency. At Strathclyde University’s Law Clinic, a model of purity remains. Law practiced the way it ought to be done, and it is a marvel to behold.

Professor Donald Nicolson who set up the clinic came from a background of establishing student law clinics in Cape Town and providing legal advice in townships, a process which he acknowledges politicised him. Whilst Glasgow does not suffer institutional disenfranchisement of that magnitude, the simple realities of economic expediency means that thousands are denied access to justice simply because their cases are of nil commercial value to a busy legal practice. His team of students are amongst the most passionate, diligent and capable exponents of law to be found in the country. Their dedication and professionalism is inspirational; a beacon of hope that allows you to retain your faith that law can deliver justice.

“We are trying to turn them into clinical legal practitioners. They get practical training to learn the skills, as well as exposure to ethics and access to justice,” Nicolson says.

The students who run the clinic take on real cases based on need, regardless of its educational value, unlike some “clinics” who discard needy clients on the basis that their case won’t provide sufficient tuition benefit. Most are just under the legal aid eligibility thresholds, where the loss or otherwise of a few hundred pounds will massively impact on their life and welfare. The only limitation, Nicolson says, is ensuring there is professional supervision.

“We are at the absolute limit for supervision. We have two part time solicitors who supervise about 50 cases each,” he says.

“We are scratching the surface. We are constantly having to turn away clients. We can’t take on everybody. What we need is 4 full time or 8 part time lawyers to come on board, we could bring in more students into the clinic -we turn away 50% of applicants- we could hook up with Glasgow, we could eradicate the problem of access to justice, everywhere except in the Highlands. We are only hamstrung by money. With the money we could wrap up the problem of access to justice in Scotland. I mean it. The model is there.”

There are 196 students divided into separate ‘firms’ under supervision, providing free legal advice on a scale and with dedication that would dazzle their well paid counterparts in firms across Scotland. Katy McSkimming, one of the students who administrates the clinic, was driven to get involved because of the pure model of law it represented. She is also frustrated that the clinic faces a battle every year to fund the supervision it receives, especially as civil clients face a need just as acute as criminal clients, whose access to the best QCs is more or less a given.

“It opens an 18 year old students eyes to the fact that that these are not just tutorial questions and case studies,” she says.

“Criminal legal aid is in most cases instant, and everybody gets represented because it is something that society feels really, really strongly about. But you have to fund a civil case yourself. We have come up against a brick wall because so many people have been classically conditioned to believe in billable hours. That is my main gripe with the ethos that commercial firms seem to be running, and the commitment that our students are willing to put in.”

Donald Nicolson is conscious of the link between ethical philosophy and the day to day practice of the law, rarely if ever the topic of conversation amongst commercial lawyers drilled in the aspects of the law where justice is rarely if ever considered.

“Legal ethics is where jurisprudence hits law, and jurisprudential values meet legal reality. Legal ethics is about how you translate your general theories about society and justice into legal practice,” he says.

“First of all it is providing a service for people who need it. At the same time it is equally important, if not more important, that there is a socialisation mechanism. We are trying to create a new generation of lawyers who see professionalism as involving not merely technical skills, but giving something back to the community. Students want to know law, but at the time we teach them access to justice.”

Yet it remains a permanent battle to secure the drip feed of funding that is the lifeblood of the service. What happens to all those budding Atticus Finches that they morph into Gordon Gekko so swiftly after qualifying? Law clinic practitioner Emma Boffey, who earlier this year became Scotland’s youngest Sheriff Court pleader, is frankly disgusted by the hypocrisy she has encountered in professional Scotland so far.

“A couple of weeks ago I sat in on a meeting about corporate social responsibility initiatives with a firm who very much had the opinion that CSR isn’t really about helping people; your priority is about looking good for your client. I find that fundamentally repulsive,’ she says.

“There needs to be an attitude shift from thinking things will make you look good for clients from a PR perspective to doing something because it is the right thing to do. It is very difficult to solve the problems with the civil legal aid budget, so you have to develop alternative solutions. If every solicitor just gave a guarantee that they would do a certain number of hours of pro bono work, there would be such a difference. But there is a reluctance because of their billable hours and the corporate ethos. So it links back into the conditioning with the commercial law firms, and it is about trying to break that attitude.”

Katy agrees that they have hit on a pure access to justice solution that is proven, well established after six years, and professionally equal to Nicolson’s ambition to eradicate inadequate access to justice in all of the country that could be reached.

“We are getting to a point where we have a fantastic working model that Donald has put together. It wouldn’t take an awful lot to give it to other law schools. With 200 student volunteers in each town, all you need is 4 solicitors.”

The ESPC duty solicitor scheme demonstrates that such a model can be operated successfully by commercial firms. All they need is the will to make it happen. If it can be done as a collegiate service to grease the wheels of the property market, is it beyond the will of Scotland’s legal community to provide universal access to justice, in a manner that may even harvest new long term clients for future commercial benefit? A trip to the law clinic is enough to inspire the hope in you that Scotland’s lawyers can rise to the challenge.