In 2014, in the shadow of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012, nine trainee solicitors started their journey as the first cohort of Justice First Fellows. They trained mostly at Law Centres and charities, organisations whose ability to provide training contracts had collapsed due to funding cuts. With solicitors no longer able to claim legal aid for vast areas of work – and civil legal aid fees still set at 1996 rates – the social welfare legal sector’s future was in serious doubt.

This was the backdrop against which The Legal Education Foundation (TLEF) launched the Justice First Fellowship (JFF). As an independent foundation supporting communities across the UK to use the law to improve lives, we’d been asking ourselves where the next generation of social justice lawyers was going to come from and how we could help. So, inspired by US-based schemes Equal Justice Works and the Skadden Fellowships, we set up the JFF scheme.

Denise McDowell, director of Greater Manchester Immigration Aid Unit and key contributor to the development of JFF, describes the landscape at the time for her organisation: ‘We were losing ground, far more than we were gaining. We were only just keeping the organisation afloat after the beginnings of so-called austerity. Everything was so grim for a long time. JFF was this light in the middle of all that.’

We set three goals for JFF:

Since the start, other charitable funders and law firms have contributed to the JFF, enabling us to support 125 people to qualify with another 34 currently in the scheme. Fellows have trained at 74 different host organisations across the UK’s four nations, from local Law Centres and firms to national charities. It’s not uncommon for fellows to stay on at their host organisations post-qualification, or in some cases for the fellowship to allow them to progress with their employer.

Owen McCloskey, now head of social security at Law Centre Northern Ireland (LCNI), had a law degree and was working at the Law Centre, which he says was the closest he was able to get to his ambition of a career as a social justice lawyer. ‘Financially, it had been challenging,’ he says. ‘Until JFF got involved, the Law Centre hadn’t offered training contracts for a couple of years.’ Through a fellowship at LCNI, Owen was able to qualify as a solicitor. ‘There were limits to what I could do and where I could go without a qualification,’ he explains. ‘JFF provided the opportunity, personally and professionally, to better myself. I would never have qualified without it.’

For host organisations, too, there are practical benefits, namely increased capacity for those who are able to employ fellows post-qualification. Some hosts have told us that they need more support to keep fellows on and integrate them into the organisation, so this year we’re piloting optional further third-year support for our 2022 cohort. And hosts don’t have to wait until their fellows have qualified to benefit from them: Elayne Hill, chief executive of Central England Law Centre, which is currently hosting its seventh fellow, says that the fellowship enables trainees to contribute fully to a team. ‘It’s allowed the teams where they’ve had seats and the fellows, to really develop without the pressure [to make money],’ she says.

Beyond qualification, it’s a priority for us that fellows remain in secure and long-term employment in the social justice sector. Our analysis of qualified fellows found that almost all (97 per cent) are in roles using the law for public benefit (including in the public sector), while three-quarters (75 per cent) are using the law for social change with almost half of these working in specialist not-for-profit legal organisation. Given the sector’s difficulties, this high level of retention is testament to the commitment of the fellows and hosts. We also know, however, that it still faces multiple compounding challenges.

Denise says: ‘We talk about creating the legal aid lawyers of the future as one of the aims of JFF, and yet you look at the state of legal aid and that’s not offering any future to young, passionate lawyers. The fees haven’t increased, they’ve only decreased [in real terms].’

Owen says the challenge starts earlier. ‘People just don't know about the social justice work,’ he explains. ‘They’re going through university and their whole idea of the law is corporate and business-focused. The work we do is so rewarding and you help people who just aren't able to get that help elsewhere. So, the more people who are brought into the sector through the fellowship, and the more people realise the help they can provide through the fellowship, the better.’

One way in which we’re trying to strengthen the sustainability of organisations in the sector is the project component of the fellowship. During their training contracts, fellows explore future areas of work via a project that they carry out concurrently. Some projects are absorbed into host organisations’ everyday work or learning, while others become fully fledged enterprises. For example, for his project, Hussein Said, fellow at Speakeasy Law Centre in Cardiff, helped set up the LGBTQ+ Law Clinic, which is currently one of the only services in the country providing free legal advice to the LGBTQ+ community. The clinic recently celebrated becoming a community interest company.

Finding Legal Options for Women Survivors (FLOWS) grew out of fellow Alexandria Lowry’s project during her time training at RCJ Advice and advises victims of domestic violence who are ineligible for legal aid. RCJ Advice subsequently partnered with the charity Rights of Women to expand the project, which is now an independent legal support service helping to protect thousands of women annually in England and Wales, funded by the Ministry of Justice.

Our third goal in establishing JFF was to support fellows to be part of a movement of lawyers using the law for social justice. We’ve always brought fellows together regularly, and since 2022 we’ve hosted an annual residential weekend to which all current and alumni fellows are invited. It gives fellows a chance to meet or reunite, share their experiences and think about social justice law in theoretical as well as practical ways. The most recent one took place in Dundee in summer 2024, and workshops covered topics from vicarious trauma and self-care to protest rights and government accountability. ‘I feel close to the other JFFs who qualified in my year,’ says Owen, ‘but because of the residential, you feel part of a wider family.’

So, what next? Recruitment for the next cohort of fellows is underway and we will be recruiting host organisations for the following year in early 2025. Find out more at our website.

In the longer term, we know that the fellowship is achieving its goals, so we’ll continue to use it to support the next generation of social justice lawyers. We’ll carry on learning and adapting: one area we’re looking at is how we can offer more opportunities for the JFF network to connect and how we support alumni to grow further in their careers as social justice lawyers.