In order to ensure that the Clinic can run at full capacity during the university holiday period, we hire a number of part time ‘Summer Students’ to staff the Clinic. These students are typically funded through one of our partnerships or by one of the law firms that support the Clinic. This year we have been able to hire ten summer students, thanks in part to the support of the Refugee Survival Trust, David Stirling and the Scottish Women’s Right Centre.

In the seventh of a series of articles written by our Summer Students, Scott O’Connor describes a typical day.

No day in the Clinic is quiet, but some are particularly busy.

A normal day will consist of catching up with emails, making telephone calls, conducting legal research for cases and doing any work that is required on our cases.

However, today I was in Ayr to represent a client in the Small Claims Court. The file had been checked numerous times to ensure that our notes and all relevant paperwork was there.

We met with the client in the waiting room and had a chat with her while we waited for the court to open. I always feel this is an important time to have a chat to keep the client at ease and to answer any questions they may have.

The Court official called us in, we took our seats and waited for our case to be called. When it was called, the Sheriff asked our position and we relayed our research. It was not a complex case and the Sheriff found in our favour quickly. After a quick debrief with our happy client outside, we were on our way back to the office.

Going to court is always nerve-wracking as a student, but going in armed with knowledge that we had done the right research and that we have a supervisor on the other side of a phone call left me confident that I was able to do the best for my client.