Law Centres Network

The Law Centres Network (LCN) serves as the national representative for law centres. Our mission is to fight injustice and poverty, empowering law centres to enhance and expand their services to those in need. We facilitate collaboration among law centres and with other entities, fortifying them as a network. We raise the collective profile and voice of law centres, to ensure their stance against injustice resonates on a national scale, influencing policy and practice. Together, law centres and the LCN, employ legal action and advocacy to foster societal transformation towards greater justice and equality.

The aim of our project is to effect long term change in access to justice for people who speak English as an Additional Language (EAL). Our focus is on leveraging the policy expertise of LCN and its membership in various reference and advisory groups associated with the Ministry of Justice and His Majesty's Court and Tribunal Service. Our aim is to advocate effectively for changes that remove barriers to accessing the justice system for individuals who speak EAL. Simultaneously, we are collaborating with three partner law centres to identify and disseminate best practices, as well as to investigate systemic obstacles at a local level, enabling us to jointly advocate for the necessary changes.

We hope to see impact in terms of users of courts, tribunals and other Ministry of Justice services who speak EAL being, firstly, better enabled to access justice, and secondly, becoming aware of their rights and better able to access entitlements and lead their lives with fewer obstacles.