I am Director of Law Centre (NI), using the law to solve people's social problems. Every year, law centres across the UK transform over 125,000 lives through law, lifting people out of poverty, destitution and homelessness or helping them to secure their legal rights. Law centres make the law equal for everyone but there is diminishing public funding for legal help and escalating need. More people are unable to afford access to justice.

My Fellowship will look at how not-for-profit community legal organisations and law centres in the USA have developed and sustained free legal services to their communities over time. I will investigate what strategies might be replicable in the UK so that people with nowhere else to turn can rely on their community law centre to help them to resolve their legal problems and improve their lives. My Fellowship will explore how to galvanise and build a culture of public and professional support for not-for-profit legal organisations, including through pro bono legal work, as well as the role that professional regulation can play. The goal is a future where law centres across the UK are resilient and flourishing champions of justice for all their communities.