The national Law Centre movement was started in the 1970s by radical lawyers who were disappointed in the failure of the welfare state to eradicate poverty and deliver a more equal society.

Coventry Law Centre was founded in 1976 by Solicitor Robert Zara and Welfare Rights specialist, Nick Bond who worked with four Councillors: Tom McLatchie, Gilbert Richards, Arthur Waugh Senior, and Charles Ward.  Originally named Coventry Legal and Income Rights Trust in 1976 it was later renamed Coventry Law Centre. Coventry City Council has been a key supporter of our work ever since.

Providing access to justice for people in need

Since its creation the law centre has continued to use legal processes to represent people and communities winning a number of notable challenges in the 1980s, including:

• Successfully challenging the discrimination of people living in high-rise flats in Coventry subject to increasing heating and service charges.
• Advising campaigners against school closures. One of the law centre’s solicitors took instructions while suspended 50 feet in the air in a cherry picker.
• Providing advice on the picket lines to those involved in the miners’ dispute.

This commitment to challenging unfair decisions by taking cases to court and using other legal processes remains to this day, with recent cases including:

• Securing the right for students with humanitarian protection to access University home fee status and student finance. Read more about the case here.
• Using the process of judicial review to ensure every two year old has the right to early years education. Read about the story of two year old Zia here.
• Successfully challenging DWP’s wrongful decision to refuse PIP support to a person who was unable to work due to a long-term injury.

Increasing understanding and access of rights for those with insecure immigration status

In the 1990s we were one of the leading agencies providing advice to a large number of Bosnian refugees who arrived in Coventry. We have continued to fight for the rights of those seeking safety from war, persecution and poverty and the right to citizenship ever since:

• In 2012 we created the Young Migrant Rights project in partnership with Grapevine gain, helping 100 young people to secure their immigration status so they would no longer face problems accessing higher education, health care, opening bank accounts, and applying for driving licences, housing and jobs.
• Provided legal advice to newly arrived families from Syria who have been settled in Coventry under the Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme and continuing to help build their legal knowledge.
• Providing information on legal rights to migrants and refugees being supported by the region-wide Mi Friendly Cities project.
  In 2016 we established pro-bono initiative KIND UK, which has secured immigration status for over 550 children and young people. Find out more about Kids in Need of Defence UK.

Continually responding to the needs of the community

Over the last 40 years, the Law Centre has evolved in response to the changing needs of the communities we serve and changes to the public funding of legal advice but we have never wavered from our focus on improving the lives of our community.

• In 2012 the law centre expanded its services to include Family Law and established Safeplace – a service that provides information and advice to survivors of domestic violence.
• In 2013 Central England Law Centre was formed when Coventry Law Centre established a new law centre service for the people of Birmingham in the wake of the closure of the city’s only community law centre.

The law centre continues to respond to the needs of the community, working alongside partners so that we can better understand the challenges and issues local communities face and innovating to meet changing needs and emerging challenges.

• In 2015 we launched IGNITE in partnership with Grapevine, Coventry City Council Children’s Services and Whitefriars Housing (now Citizen). IGNITE was an innovative five-year programme to explore how to redesign public sector support to help people earlier and build resilience in those least able to cope. Find out more about IGNITE.
• In 2016 we partnered with the Astraea Project to launch the Mother and Child project to ensure pregnant women and mothers who are or have been in the care system receive the support they are entitled to. Find out more about the Mother and Child project.
• In 2016 we pioneered a new approach to public legal education with the RIPPLE project, enabling groups of people to practically use the law to solve shared issues. Read more about this unique model of public legal education.
• In 2017 we created the Coventry Women’s Partnership with four partner organisations and the Women’s Budget Group. Find out more about how the Coventry Women’s Partnership is empowering women in Coventry.
• In response to a surge in demand from people most in need and the changes to the way our organisation and others were able to operate in times of Covid we sought new ways of working; developed new collaborations; built on existing, well-established and strong community partnerships; and innovated in key areas. Find out more about our impact during Covid.
• In 2018 the law centre established long-term partnerships with several local universities, including Coventry University, Warwick University and Birmingham City University.

Embedding rights in the community

In 2021 we established the Rights in the Community strategy to continue Central England Law Centre’s vision of a fairer, more just society in which an understanding of rights and their power is embedded within communities. This vision drives all of our work which is focused on three strategic areas of activity:

People

The key driver for our approach and the biggest volume of our activity is our work with individuals to ensure more people are protected by their rights and to build their understanding of where they can use legal rights to protect themselves in the future. We believe that working within communities to activate and uphold rights is the most effective way to tackle both the drivers of issues and the issues themselves, thereby preventing intractable and often cyclical challenges.

Partnership

We form close partnerships with other community-focused services to help to place legal rights at the heart of their work and to activate a rights-based approach in their interactions with service users, blending our work with theirs so that together we can offer more holistic support to people.

Policy

We build alliances with organisations committed to identifying and tackling systemic injustice using legal processes to create fairer legislation and policies that reduce poverty, inequality and discrimination.

Find out more about our Rights in the Community strategy