 
We are proud to offer our national paralegal pro-bono
programme in partnership with Citizens Advice.
Be
a true professional:
Use your legal experience
to help others and, in return, receive valuable experience
and sophisticated free training |
The Institute and CAB
were short-listed finalists in The Lawyer Awards 2005, Pro-Bono
category. This is what the lawyer wrote about us:
|
Despite
still being a very young organisation (it was formally granted
institute status in only February this year), the Institute
of Paralegals already has a thriving pro bono programme up
and running. Last December the institute joined up with the
Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB) to provide a national project
aimed at paralegals, who until now had no real route to support
pro bono initiatives. CAB's regular volunteers tend not to
be legally trained, and help from paralegals is a boost to
the organisation and the advice it gives. Those volunteering
through the programme receive CAB-accredited training, and
it is open to support staff, trainees and solicitors as well
as paralegals. Government organisations such as the Crown
Prosecution Service are also encouraging staff to join the
programme.
|
Our
Pro-Bono Programme:
Citizens Advice would
like to hear from all paralegals interested in becoming part-time
volunteer advisors.
The CAB service is independent
and provides free, confidential and impartial advice to everybody
regardless of race, sex, disability sexuality or nationality. It
is the largest advice-giving network in the UK, with over 3,000
outlets and around 24,000 volunteers. The CAB help people deal with
nearly six million problems every year, in bureaux, by phone and
email, at outreach sessions in places such as GP surgeries and courts
- even in people's homes.
As a paralegal you may
already have quite a few of the skills necessary to make you a particularly
effective advisor:
- Legal knowledge
- Experience in dealing with bureaucracy
- An ability to work with and get along with people who are often anxious about the problems confronting them
- Letter and report drafting expertise
- Administrative competency
- The ability to really listen so as to identify
and prioritize issues
- Problem solving skills
- The expertise that allows you to analyze
situations and identify and ask the important questions
Training
Being an advisor means assisting people whose problems are real, worrying and pressing. A few examples of these, amongst many, are:
- Employment
- Debt
- Housing
- Benefits
- Immigration
- Legal matters
- Consumer rights
Advisors perform a professional
role. Therefore the Citizens Advice runs a comprehensive, sophisticated
free training course for all advisors before they get to meet clients.
Successful completion
of the course will lead to a diploma awarded by Citizens Advice
and widely recognised in the voluntary sector.
During the training course
you will learn (or refresh) many important skills, including the
arts of advising, of properly listening and of effective questioning
so as to ensure that you get the full story.
The length of the training course
depends very much on the skills you already have, and the amount
of time that you can commit to the training.
You will also benefit
from having a mentor who will work with you during your training.
Experience
There are few roles that
offer as much hands-on advisory experience as being an advisor at
Citizens Advice. This may be particularly useful if your paralegal
duties are limited in scope, e.g. perhaps you only do paper-based
work.
Being a Citizens Advice part-time
volunteer advisor will give you a whole swathe of new skills and experience.
Next
Steps
For more information, then please
click
here to visit the
Citizens Advice web-site.
If you wish to discuss
applying, then please contact the Citizens Advice National Volunteer
Recruitment Line: 08451 264 264.
We welcome your ideas, views or comments
on this project and any others you think that we should consider.
Please email us at office@ theiop.org (note the break in the
link). |
