Unlocking the Power of Digital Signature Lawfulness for Legal Services in the United Kingdom

How to eSign a document: digital signature lawfulness for Legal Services in United Kingdom

hello i'm barrister daniel barnett and this is a video on how to get free legal advice it's very expensive normally to get legal advice because solicitors and barristers charge for their time they normally charge an hourly rate although fixed fees are increasingly common and they have a significant support structure so solicitors for example have to pay for expensive premises often in expensive areas they have to pay for administrative staff they have to pay for trainees and and legal assistance and they have to pay a whacking huge insurance premium because insurance premiums actually amount to a significant amount of what your lawyer charges you as a fee so that all adds up and it can often cost you 150 pounds an hour or more to get legal advice from a solicitor so what i'm going to do is tell you 15 ways to get free legal advice now in some situations some of the routes i'm going to give you are going to just pass you on to other agencies other organizations and it's very sensible to try more than one of these because if one says no it's quite possible another will say yes so do try many of these if the first ones that you try are not met with success don't give up a quick thank you to district judge stephen gold who's behind the website breaking law he has put together this list of 15 ways of getting free legal advice which he's given me permission to tell you about so judge stephen gold thank you very much for this and do have a look at his website and also have a look at his book breaking law it's a brilliant guide written for non-legally qualified people on how to cope with the court system and all about your rights the best known is legal aid now legal aid is only available for a very very narrow type of claim there are some discrimination claims some family claims some debt claims some education claims but almost all claims you can no longer get legal aid for the government's cut it back enormously over the last 20 years or so if you're interested in getting civil legal aid you will have to pass a means test which means you have to show that you have very little disposable cash and no real assets to speak of you can get a lot more information about the sorts of things that you can get legal aid for and also about the means test how it's calculated and whether you'd qualify at .gov dot uk civil hyphen legal hyphen advice the source of family cases which legal aid is available for is where you've been the victim of domestic abuse and where you have reasonable prospects of success in a court case but those are only a very limited substrata of the types of family law cases that people often encounter number two citizens advice bureau now they operate out of 2500 locations around the uk they don't always open so you have to make an appointment you have to ring them and it can be quite difficult to get through on the phone citizensadvice.org dot uk is the website to go to for more information about that or you can call them on oh three four four four one one one four four four number three is the royal courts of justice advice bureau rcj roll course of justice rcj advice dot co dot uk now you can uh go onto their website and they will have a triage form there that you then fill in and email back to them they only sit in central london in the royal courts of justice in the strand and they are only open monday to friday between 2 p.m and 4 p.m and you have to contact them through email or through sending them the triage form first don't just turn up they won't be able to see you number four it used to be called the bar pro bono unit it's now called advocate and that's an organization that puts you in touch with barristers who will represent you for free they tend to be relatively junior barristers but not always i've done a couple of cases through advocate but you can only be referred to advocate either through the rcj advice center which i just mentioned or through a solicitor or through your member of parliament number five is law works .lawworks.org.uk again this is free advice usually taking place at some local advice center often a law center i'll talk more about those in a moment but you have to contact them through their website first you cannot just turn up you have to make an appointment they will give you advice not necessarily representation at court but they'll certainly give you legal advice on a huge range of matters that might trouble you on a day-to-day basis number six law centers now they can do a huge amount more than just giving you initial advice they can actually take on your case and represent you uh if legal aid is available if civil legal aid is available which i spoke about a moment ago law centers tend to be supervised by solicitors although the caseworker might not be a qualified solicitor and you can get more information on law centres at .lawcenters.org.uk number seven is the free representation unit this is an organization that's very close to my heart they represent individuals in employment tribunals in social security tribunals and in criminal injury compensation tribunals and it's staffed by a very very professional group of staff who decide which cases to take on and they are then allocated to law students usually students who want to train as barristers and want to get the qualifications on their cv that they've represented people through the free representation unit and they are usually incredibly dedicated incredibly hard working i started my career through the free representation unit before i qualified as a barrister i did about 15 or 20 employment tribunals representing people and i still remember every single person i represented back in my early 20s and it's a great organization one i thoroughly endorse and support you can contact them at .thefru.org.uk number eight is support through court previously known as the personal support unit it provides emotional and practical support including filling in forms and the web address is .supportthroughcourt.org number nine very well known for housing advice contact shelter shelter is a excellent charity it's dedicated to helping people with housing problems and they do have a legal helpline look them up on the internet shelter number 10 you can get free housing advice at court now this is the case even if you haven't previously sought legal advice you can just turn up to court and they will often not always there will often be someone there on a duty rotor providing free housing advice remember these people are usually lawyers who are volunteers so they're giving up their time for free to help people like you uh you turn up you talk to them they may be able to represent you in court they may be able to help negotiate with your landlord and see if they can settle some sort of um or help you get some sort of deal either paying your arrears in installments or uh coming to some sort of agreement about when you'll play your music and when you won't play your music and even if the case doesn't get heard that day as is often the case they still might be able to represent you at a resumed hearing sometime later number 11 free initial advice from a solicitor many solicitors firms will actually give you a free initial no obligation consultation typically lasting about half an hour now you can't expect the solicitor to do a huge amount of work you can't expect this lister to read a load of documents in advance don't turn up clutching a huge file of papers they're just not going to read them but it is an opportunity to sit down at a desk with a qualified solicitor and just talk through your problem and this is really a marketing device for most solicitors firms listeners want to get clients who will pay the money so it's a way of them getting people in through the door so they can talk to you find out if you have a case that's likely to win and then discuss funding options which might be some of the ones i'm going to come to which include insurance options or no and no fee cases number 12 being no win no fee now you can agree with a solicitor that they will represent you for free often you have to take out an insurance premium to guarantee paying the costs of the other side if you lose your case at the end of the day but that insurance premium is part of the benefit that you get from the insurance policy and you don't actually have to pay any money out your own pocket if you win then a percentage of your damages will go to pay the solicitor and go to pay the insurance premium if you lose you don't pay anything no when no fee cases will only be taken by solicitors if they think you have a good chance of success so if a solicitor says no to a no win no fee that tells you it might not be worth paying the money to them privately on an hourly basis not always but it's an indicator whereas if they say yes to a no win no fee it tells you they think they're going to be able to get a decent result either in court or by way of a settlement 13 are damages based agreements they're a bit like no with no fee except the lawyer takes a percentage of your compensation under no win no fee they can often take a a proportion of their fees which increase and become payable by the other side under a damages based agreement they take a straight percentage of your compensation uh number 14 is insurance you might hold an insurance policy you might not even be aware you hold this insurance policy that covers you up to a certain amount 25 000 or 50 000 pounds for legal fees in the event you're involved in a legal dispute check all your insurance policies carefully they sometimes come as tag ons either for free or you might have ticked a little box that says you'll pay five pounds extra on your premium for legal expenses insurance they often come associated with household insurance or content insurance or sometimes even motor insurance check your policies carefully because if you have legal expense insurance first of all it will pay for a solicitor for you second of all it gives you incredible peace of mind because assuming the insurance company agrees your case is reasonable and agrees to fund it then you will have a shield against an adverse costs order against being ordered to pay the other side's costs should you eventually lose and finally there's something called a legal services order now this only applies in matrimonial cases in financial cases where you're arguing with your spouse or ex-spouse over the amount of money that they should have to pay you now if they've got a lot of money but you haven't and you can't afford to pay for a lawyer you can get an order from the court that they your spouse spousal expats pay for your lawyer to allow you to have equal levels of representation at court it's quite a powerful order to get because uh it means that the other side is paying for your lawyer but of course when you're involved in financial negotiations and financial dispute resolution the last thing you want to be doing is sucking the money out of the pot by paying it off to the lawyers you want to keep as much money in the pot as you possibly can to share between your ex-spouse and yourself the more money that you give to lawyers the less money there is there for you your family your children and of course your ex-spouse so just be aware it's not a free gift horse it is costing you at the end of the day but it is a way of funding the lawyers in the immediate short term well i hope you found that video useful uh thanks again to stephen gold the author of breaking law from whom i got that list and have a look at his website links below uh please do subscribe to this channel click the subscribe button below click the notification bell so that you get notifications when i record new videos this channel is going to become the go-to source for all legal information for those who can't afford it thank you so much for watching i'm barrister daniel barnett [Music] bye