Law centre

A Law Centre is a type of not-for-profit legal practice in the United Kingdom which assists people who cannot afford a lawyer. Law Centres are independent and directly accountable to the communities they serve, usually through committees of local people.

Staffed by lawyers and caseworkers, Law Centres help people with civil legal problems such as eviction from their home, exploitation at work, discrimination and exclusion from school. They also seek to tackle the root causes of poverty and inequality in their communities.

Law Centre is a registered trademark.

The Law Centre movement began in the UK in the early 1970s, influenced by the growth of "neighbourhood law offices" in the United States.

Legal aid had been available in the UK since 1949, but there were few legal practices in deprived areas and few lawyers who specialised in the areas of law most relevant to poor and disadvantaged people such as housing and welfare rights.

Law Centres were set up to fill this gap. The first was North Kensington Law Centre which opened in London on 17 July 1970. By the end of the 1970s, there were 27 Law Centres in the UK. By the mid-1980s there were 54, most of which were in urban areas.

In England, Wales and Northern Ireland, Law Centres are members of the Law Centres Network (trading name of the Law Centres Federation). In Scotland, they are members of the Scottish Association of Law Centres.

As in February 2015, there were 44 Law Centres in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The number of Law Centres and their services has been adversely affected by a series of funding cuts from central and local government. In particular, the removal of much of social welfare law from the scope of civil legal aid in the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (LASPO) has led to the closure of ten Law Centres.

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