Interested in human rights? Work with Liberty!
2 September 2013
Liberty, the human rights organisation, is looking for qualified and qualifying lawyers to staff its advice line.
This is a great opportunity – you can trust me on that, as I did it for a year whilst I was a pupil barrister. I learned a huge amount about practical human rights issues, as well as meeting some great people. The advice line provides an essential service to those who are unlikely to be able to obtain advice anywhere else.
All details after the break below, and on this flyer (PDF).
Are you interested in human rights? Would you like to work with Liberty?
Liberty is one of the UK’s leading human rights and civil liberties organisations. We carry out test case litigation and interventions, lobby Parliament, campaign on a wide range of issues, and provide advice and information to the general public.
Liberty operates a telephone advice line for members of the public to call to obtain advice and information about their human rights. We are now seeking new volunteers from the legal community to help us with this important pro bono work.
When it is
We currently need more volunteers to cover the evening sessions on Monday and Thursday evening from 6:30pm to 8:30pm.
Where it is
Liberty’s offices are on Strutton Ground, London, SW1P 2HR (nearest tubes are St James’s Park, Westminster and Victoria).
Who does it
The advice line is staffed by a pool of volunteers – solicitors, barristers, pupils and trainees. A Liberty staff member will always be available to provide information and assistance with calls. Unfortunately, the terms of our insurance mean that we are unable to accept paralegals or students as volunteers.
What you would do
Volunteers simply turn up on the required evening to take calls and provide appropriate human rights advice. The advice is given on a one-off basis and generally no further correspondence is entered into.
While the line is primarily a human rights advice line we receive a broad range of legal enquiries on diverse issues spanning criminal and civil law. Some queries raise human rights issues and some do not. However we always try to give advice or provide referrals as appropriate. Liberty will sometimes request that the caller write in providing further details if we feel that there is a case we are interested in taking on.
How it works
The advice line is a very flexible way to volunteer. Every month volunteers receive an email asking if they are available for one evening the following month. If they are available they email back specifying which evening they would like to attend. If they are not available for that month they simply do not email back.
If you would like to volunteer on the advice line or are interested in finding out more, please email Katy Watts at katyw@liberty-human-rights.org.uk
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Lawyers are not social science analysts. I am a not corrupt argentine forensic professional on Linguistics and Social Semiotics. The issue involves linguistics matters are stereotypes, discriminations, etc have a discoursive support. Should a forensic on my areas be of eny help, you are most welcome.
Liberty is a fabulous campaign group run on a shoe string. If I had a law qualification I would be honoured to do this, but unfortunately I did philosophy. I would encourage anyone with a law degree and an interest in human rights to do this. As a member I can tell you that they are a great bunch of people and guarantee that you will learn a lot, As an unemployed disabled person it only costs me £1 per month to be a member for which I receive enough information to write some really mean letters to my local MP..
Any resemblance to an unpaid internship is of couse entirely coincidental.
Everybody’s doing it, doing it, doing it.
Andrew – you wrote “coincidental” but I think you meant to write “non-existent”. Volunteering to answer phones for maybe a couple of hours in an evening once a month (if you happen to be free and fancy it) is nothing like an unpaid internship.