Volunteer Employment Advisor - Recensione dipendente - Volunteer presso Free Representation Unit

Comprehensive 1-1, Q&A before you are given a case. It helps you to be on top of the case inside out, as the questions can be hard.

Charity budget. Usual difficulties. Lots of well-meaning people but sometimes hard to get emails answered as rely a lot on volunteers and staff need to go on holidays to avoid burn out.

If you live in London, a fraction of the cases referred to the charity find volunteers. A smaller fraction than that are won at tribunal by the fraction of good people there who are incredible advocates and volunteers. It may be more effective to campaign to change the law surrounding benefits, but at least there’s that drop in the ocean.

- ‘Legal Training’ is a one day lecture. I received no case law updates, no internally written legal material and absolutely no teaching on the laws of bullying or office harassment. - Staff are not always in the office at the dates/times they are contractually meant to be. I know people who booked holiday time off work to visit FRU staff, only to find they weren’t there. This makes it incredibly hard for employed lawyers to contribute their skills. - The policies of who can take out ‘Experienced Rep’ cases are not universally followed. I know people who have taken less than 4 cases get those cases because they pushed for it or already had pupillage. So a large number of client cases stay sitting in folders on shelves, rather than being prepared for tribunals. - More than once, I found client papers sitting around abandoned in the libraries of London law schools and brought them back to the FRU office. I have no idea if these incidents were written up or how these volunteers were handled, but I know what I saw. - FRU did not have an accessible Bullying & Harassment Policy until 2013. Before that time, BPTC students handled harassment complaints, protected their friends, led the charity into expensive mediation and a heap of unnecessary stress for everyone involved. No one has ever been reported to the BSB for harassment of other volunteers at FRU, likely because I feel the charity wanted to protect people the staff liked. - I have never seen a BAME trustee at the charity. Their offices are based in London. I feel the trustees should have at least one member from an ethnic minority group to act as a voice for the large number of BAME clients. - As so few people at the charity have pupillage or a professional connection with the legal profession, I think those that do wield power over those that don’t. Staff are willing to give the benefit of the doubt or assume someone is necessary truthful and competent based on the fact they have a pupillage, not on reviewing other evidence. For some past staff, I think it made them feel special and important to think they had barristers as ‘friends’. - Bullying and harassment is rife and out of control. I have seen volunteers shouted at, reduced to tears, volunteers told by non-lawyers that they are ‘compromising their clients case’ (when that couldn’t be further from the truth) and have heard clients with severe mental health conditions being laughed at by volunteers and referred to as ‘crazy’. People make horrible comments to ethnic minority volunteers, asking how they could possibly brush their hair and asking if their parents are involved in political corruption. The atmosphere is toxic. The office is treated as a personal fiefdom by some, who are never confronted by staff for verbal abuse or aggression. - People peddle the assumption that if you are ‘committed’ enough and complete 10 cases, barristers would favour you over other pupillage candidates. That isn’t true - chambers will always prefer stellar academics over work experience. But the myth is spread to keep a steady supply of young, student-aged volunteers for barristers to easily mingle with. - FRU conducted mediation sessions in 2014 and 2015 against female volunteers when they were sexually harassed by male barristers. I have no idea how much mediation cost the charity or how many allegations of sexual harassment they handle each year. But I think it’s very important for donors, volunteers and all members of the pubic to know this. In this age of #Metoo, pretending that sexual harassment has never happened at FRU isn’t going to work. - The inequalities in the office are startling. I’ve seen volunteers with £5k a month pupillages bragging in the office about flying business class and buying £300 opera tickets, not caring that they are being overheard in the open-plan office by disabled clients fighting in tribunal to live on £500 or less a month. - The year I ran the London Marathon for FRU, not a single trustee or member of staff bothered to get out of bed to cheer for the runners. I got a ‘thank you’ letter for all my fundraising four years later.