Clinic director, Kate Laverty, talks about what summer 2021 has been like for the clinic so far, and what our summer students and volunteer students have been working on throughout the break.

I find it hard to believe that we are facing another summer working from home – it certainly has it’s pros and cons especially during this blistering heatwave. I can’t complain however as I had a completely energising break in South Uist in the Outer Hebrides.

As usual we are continuing to operate a full service throughout the summer and in fact we are often even busier during the summer. Our fantastic team of summer students have hit the ground running. We have a number of general case workers each of them very busy with new and existing cases. These students allow us to continue to represent people over the summer and fulfil our commitments to existing clients many of whom have ongoing employment tribunal proceedings, SSSC hearings or simple procedure actions. We were very fortunate to have the support of Law at Work this year who funded one of our summer interns.

Our two student directors are working away on various matters to get us ready for the year ahead. They have made great headway with our Annual Report, updating the website, working on a new idea for a podcast as well as numerous other tasks.

We were delighted that The Strathclyde Alumni Fund supported a project to get a new Street Law idea up and running and the student assigned to this task has been very productive. She has been working with a number of community organisations discussing the kinds of legal information that would help their members and how best to communicate this information. Our students working on The Asylum Project and the Scottish Women’s Rights Centre have been working on cases, training materials and many other tasks relating to their projects.

Although we have a number of different students in different roles what they have in common is drive and enthusiasm and this is all the more impressive when working from home. We would have loved to have them interacting and sharing ideas in our office environment but working from home has not prevented this from happening. We meet every morning at the very least and it never fails to amaze me how they maintain their motivation and their very positive attitude to clinic work. Each of them is driven to learn as much as they can and contribute ideas about various aspects of the Clinic’s operation and this makes them a joy to work with.

We also have very dedicated student volunteers who, despite their various work, family and social commitments, continue to work hard on their cases and projects throughout the summer on an entirely voluntary basis. We could not do half the amount of work we do without them and they inspire us all. We owe them all a huge thanks.

Kate Laverty, Director

Student Directors: Jordan Hamlett and Rebecca Dyer

TAP: Francesca Pozzo

SWRC: Erin Connor

Street Law: Nicola Maguire

Case Workers: Carly Morrison, Carmen Rowatt, Cara Hope, Mhairi Strachan

Volunteer Students: We wish we could name you all, but a big thank you to all that have, and continue to help throughout the summer.

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