Nottingham Law School’s multi award winning teaching law firm has been rebranded to NLS Legal to reflect its status more accurately as a regulated law firm and its growing range of services.
Formerly the Nottingham Law School Legal Advice Centre, NLS Legal sees Nottingham Law School students support members of the local community with free and affordable legal advice.
Supervised by a small team of experienced lawyers, they assist on a range of legal areas including employment, family, housing, business, civil litigation, intellectual property, special educational needs and disability, welfare benefits and victims’ rights. The firm also delivers a number of public legal education sessions each year in order to raise awareness of legal rights and responsibilities.
The firm provides hundreds of work experience opportunities for Nottingham Law School students each year. The law students provide administrative and management support to the firm, such as dealing with new enquiries and being involved in monitoring risk and compliance, through to case work such as research, drafting, client interviewing and representing clients at tribunal or court.
The service is aimed at those that are unable to afford, or unable to access, legal services and the team has secured financial awards totalling more than £5.5 million for its clients. The firm has also won numerous prominent accolades, including most recently being named Law Firm of the Year at the Lexis Nexis Legal Awards 2022 after being nominated alongside five private national and international law firms.
As a not-for-profit teaching law firm with charitable status, NLS Legal was the UK’s first law firm fully integrated into a law school when it obtained an ABS (Alternative Business Structure) licence in 2015.
Head of NLS Legal, Laura Pinkney, said: “When we launched as an ABS, we were the only firm of its type in the UK and this model remains rare both in the UK and internationally. As a law firm with a difference, we pride ourselves on providing high quality legal services, promoting access to justice and supporting the development of our students.
“Over the last seven years we have continued to grow and adapt, supporting more than 150 clients each year through the effects of cuts to legal aid, the pandemic and now the cost-of-living crisis.
“We now offer such a full range of support covering many areas of the law that we felt the time was right for a name change to reflect the services we offer as a fully regulated not-for-profit law firm.”
