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Episode Notes

In this week’s episode, we speak with activist and law graduate (and Lawmanity’s new Legal Caseworker!) Amanda Amaeshi about what meaningful access to justice really looks like in practice. 

Drawing on her final-year module Access to Justice and Community Engagement at University College London (UCL) Faculty of Laws, as well as her experiences volunteering with the UCL Integrated Legal Advice Clinic in Stratford, East London, Amanda reflects on both the power and limitations of the legal system. 

Amanda shares her insights on: 

• How a legal system that enshrines equality in law can, in practice, deny it through cost, complexity, and chronic underfunding
• The role of lawyers in social justice movements: not as protagonists, but as allies and collaborators
• Why a more empathetic, community-driven vision of justice is essential for making the system work for those it is meant to serve

Additional resources for this episode are linked below:

• Legal representation out of reach for many survivors of domestic abuse – The Law Society | Katie Johnson | 3 October 2024 https://todaysfamilylawyer.co.uk/legal-representation-out-of-reach-for-many-survivors-of-domestic-abuse-the-law-society/
     

• Not Safe Here – Report | Rape Crisis England and Wales https://rapecrisis.org.uk/get-informed/not-safe-here/
   

• Stop and Search ‘Mission Creep’ disproportionately targets marginalised groups | Bradley Young | 14 October 2024 https://www.thejusticegap.com/stop-and-search-mission-creep-disproportionately-targets-marginalised-groups/

• UCL Integrated Legal Advice Clinic (UCL iLAC): https://www.ucl.ac.uk/laws/access-to-justice/ucl-integrated-legal-advice-clinic-ucl-ilac

• UCL Laws’ Centre for Access to Justice: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/laws/access-to-justice
   

• UCL Faculty of Laws: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/laws/

• “[A] lawyer’s role in society is not to change the rules of the game, but to assist in maintaining the rules and to help resolve conflicts established under the rules.” – p.406

➡️James Douglas, The Distinction Between Lawyers as Advocates and as Activists, 40 Clev St L Rev 405 (1992) | https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1759\&context=clevstlrev 

• “The conventional narrative goes something like this: the lawyer is the protagonist. A social problem exists and a group or individual calls on the lawyer to do something about it. The lawyer asks, what legal levers can I pull to fix this problem? She explores various possibilities, decides on a course of action together with her client, and proceeds. The legal strategy either wins, in which case the story is a successful one, or loses, in which case it fails. The central concern of the narrative is whether the law is a useful tool for social change, or is more likely to derail it.” – p. 2133
• “In neither case did the lawyer elbow the community group protagonist aside. Rather her challenge was to help the group assess the local effects of political or economic changes taking place on a municipal, national, and global levels; to strategize about how best to intervene in that landscape; and to figure out how legal tactics could bolster and protect the group’s efforts to carry out larger strategy. What doors could law open? What stories could it tell? What time could it buy? What promises could it exact? What power would it build?” – p. 2137-38 

➡️Jennifer Gordon, The Lawyer is Not the Protagonist: Community Campaigns, Law and Social Change, 95 CALIF. L. REV. 2133 (2007) | https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=\&httpsredir=1\&article=1348\&context=faculty_scholarship 

• Young Leaders: Everyone has a role to play to make the world a better place | Amanda Amaeshi | 30 October 2024 https://thewowfoundation.com/news/young-leaders-everyone-has-a-role-to-play-to-make-the-world-a-better-place/
    

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