Former ‘Justice in Action’ student Catherine Martin writes about some of her realisations when undertaking our mediation project earlier this year.

Prior to embarking on my Open Justice mediation project, I was sceptical about lawyers’ motivations for carrying out pro bono work. I thought Pro bono lawyers fell into two categories: immigration and human rights lawyers with “a calling” and those that carried out pro bono just for career advancement. When preparing my first TMA, I wrote the following Open Justice Portfolio entry:

Former W360 ‘Justice in Action’ student Nicola Bradford writes about her experience of working on our prison project and the new insights this gave her.

Final-year OU law student Daniel Doody discusses his experience of volunteering at Citizens Advice whilst studying W360: Justice in Action

Professor Suzanne Rab OU Law Associate lecturer has been selected as one of the six finalists for the Inspirational Women in Law Awards, in the Barrister of the Year category.

National pro bono week  2019 provides a great opportunity to celebrate the depth and breadth of the public engagement projects developed by the Open Justice Centre. Applied technology is often at the heart of these projects.

Francine Ryan reports on her experience of being invited to address an international legal education conference celebrating 50 years of Hong Kong Law School

In October 2019 the Open Justice Centre and Middlesex University ran their second joint Student Street Law conference.  Twenty OU students worked with the same number of Middlesex students from Friday evening to Sunday tea time.

In this guest post, Lucy Pettinger, a current Open Justice student, tackles the issue of whether or not UK lawyers should be obliged to offer their services for free to some clients. She makes a strong case that although pro bono should be promoted, much would be lost if it were made compulsory.

Jamahl received a 2019 Open Justice Award for an outstanding contribution to Open Justice pro bono activities. In this post he reflects on his experience of studying W360: Justice in Action which included working in prisons and providing free legal advice to members of the public in the Open Justice Online Law Clinic.

Introduction

Now, I’m going to be frank. When I was considering my optional module at the end of my degree I was concerned about W360 Justice in Action (the Open Justice module) because, as a relatively new addition to the Open University’s offering, it was a bit of an unknown quantity and the success of my overall degree grade rested on how well I could do in the last two 30 credit modules. I had a big interest in social justice, so it had real appeal, but I was particularly concerned about the team-working element and whether, despite my best efforts, this could negatively impact on my grades.