This diary captures the Legal Advice Centre’s activities during the 2025–2026 academic year, celebrating the people, projects and moments that shape our work.
Entry six: The Homelessness Legal Clinic
Welcome back dear readers. As we enter a new term, we thought it was time to open the door on the day‑to‑day reality of the LSE Legal Advice Centre.
Over the next few entries, we will bring you along as we explore the plethora of clinics that form the Centre.
Today, we start with a clinic that is very close to the hearts of many: the Homelessness Legal Clinic. Established in partnership with Centrepoint and Shelter, the Clinic was born out of a shared concern that too many young people were being turned away from local authorities without the help or protection the law requires. What began as an idea has, in just a few short months, become something far more impactful than we could have imagined.
Since our launch in October 2025, the Clinic has supported ten young clients, all aged between 18 and 24. They are young, often isolated, and overwhelmingly vulnerable. Around 80% of our clients so far have been young women. Several have experienced domestic abuse or a complete breakdown in family relationships. Some are sofa surfing, moving from one temporary arrangement to the next. Others have been living in their cars. A few are sleeping rough.
This week, our students advised a young woman who had fled violence from her father and was sleeping rough as a result. In moments like these, the legal issues—local authority duties, interim accommodation, procedural fairness—are inseparable from the human reality beneath them. This is what makes the work both so difficult, and so deeply meaningful.
For students in the Homelessness Legal Clinic, the work strikes a chord that reverberates long after they’ve left the eighth floor. They support young people who have been unlawfully turned away by local authorities without proper assessment—a practice known as “gatekeeping”—and they see first‑hand what happens when the safety net fails. Many of the clients we support would never have accessed legal advice without the Clinic. Without an advocate, without help to put their story on paper, they would simply have disappeared from view. As part of the Clinic, students work in pairs to interview clients, carefully unpick complex personal and housing histories, and draft letters of advice and representation. This work is carried out under the close supervision of specialist housing lawyers from Shelter, whose expertise and generosity underpin the Clinic’s success. Through these representations, students challenge unlawful decisions and insist—politely but firmly—on young people’s rights being taken seriously.
The impact of this work is not theoretical. In our first few months alone, four of our clients have been offered accommodation as a direct result of our representations. Four young people who, weeks earlier, were sleeping in cars, on friends’ floors, or on the streets.
That impact extends to the students, too, who are working so hard for the clinic's mission. In their own words:
"Meeting clients over Zoom gives the work an immediacy that’s hard to capture on paper alone. Being able to hear someone’s story directly allows us to form a genuine connection and gain a much deeper understanding of their situation. Many of our clients come from disadvantaged backgrounds, with little or no support network, and often feel profoundly let down by their local councils. Through these conversations, and the letters we go on to write, we’re not just advocating legally—we’re also offering reassurance and a sense that someone is finally listening."
“I was genuinely affected by our call with today’s client. Before volunteering in homelessness clinics, I’ll admit I was largely ignorant of the scale and reality of homelessness facing young people. Speaking directly with clients—hearing about their experiences of being turned away, unsupported, and left to cope alone—has made me far more aware and sensitive to these issues. It’s reinforced for me how powerful even small acts of advocacy can be, and has only strengthened my motivation to work in public interest law.”
"Participating in the Homelessness Clinic has been profoundly meaningful. The young people we work with are often facing circumstances that feel insurmountable—navigating bureaucratic systems whilst dealing with housing instability and the stress of an uncertain future. Knowing that our efforts can help restore someone’s sense of agency and hope, or simply provide reassurance during an overwhelming time, makes every case deeply rewarding. It’s a privilege to contribute to work that genuinely improves outcomes for those who might otherwise have nowhere to turn for legal support."
It’s emotionally demanding work, the sort that reveals what kind of lawyer you’ll become when the stakes are real. Which, of course, is exactly the point.
Previous entries
Welcome to the LSE Legal Advice Centre, where legal theory meets human reality and students discover legal practice bears very little resemblance to glossy courtroom dramas. They quickly learn that practising law involves significantly more paperwork and considerably less evidence tampering, though the coffee consumption remains impressively high.
The Legal Advice Centre is returning for its second year, following last year’s launch of the pilot programme, a milestone for the LSE Law School. The clinic’s first year delivered genuinely impressive numbers: 115 enquiries, 36 clients served, and not a single student abandoned ship mid-semester. Those are the kind of numbers that make everyone quietly pleased with themselves.
Diana Kirsch, the clinic’s brilliant Director, has returned with the kind of infectious enthusiasm that could power a generator. She has wonderfully ambitious plans that sound either visionary or dizzying, depending on how much sleep you’ve had.
I’m looking forward to welcoming our new cohort of Legal Advice Centre students. I had a busy summer of interviewing students and I was really impressed with their enthusiasm for our work. We’ve got some exciting new projects and we are pleased to be welcoming two new colleagues – our new Deputy Director Saher Osman and our Clinic Coordinator Behnia Naemi.
As a result of Diana’s tireless work, some exciting updates are underway.
The clinic is settling into its new home on the bright and airy eighth floor of the Cheng Kin Ku Building, allowing the students to meet their vitamin D quota. The new space deserves its own proper introduction. More on that soon.
The employment law clinic, which handled over half of last year’s cases, is continuing to expand to meet growing demand. New partnerships are also taking shape, alongside a brand-new Sustainability Law Clinic, because apparently, saving the planet has been added to Tuesday’s to-do list.
Amidst all of these changes, the Centre Diaries are our attempt to document what happens when law students encounter actual human problems in all their messy complexity. Think nature documentary, but the wildlife wears business casual and occasionally has an existential crisis about legal ethics. You’ll witness the delicate choreography of students learning to balance overwhelming compassion with professional judgment, a process roughly as straightforward as learning to parallel park in central London.
Each term follows its own theme, because law schools do love their organisation. To kick off the Diaries, the Autumn Term explores “Building a Clinic”, covering everything from what it takes to set up a clinic to digging into the work. The team is already off to the races, armed with unfettered determination and an impressive collection of highlighter pens.
Welcome to year two. The doors are ready to open, and there’s work to be done.
As with any great literary saga, we must begin by setting the scene. However, the LSE Legal Advice Centre is defined not so much by the space it occupies as by the people who have lovingly shaped it into existence. So that is where we begin, with the visionaries of the clinic.
At the helm of our trusty ship is a name you’ll recognise, Diana Kirsch, the clinic’s Director. Diana is by now seasoned in setting up legal clinics, having previously established BPP’s Criminal Appeals Project and the award-winning Hertfordshire Law Clinic, the Shelter Court Runner Scheme, and the Stevenage Welfare Benefits Appeals Project, after a decade of working as a criminal defence solicitor. Needless to say, she has sailed these waters before.
Supporting, and hoping to match Diana’s limitless drive is Saher Osman, the clinic’s Deputy Director and in-house Employment Law specialist. Saher has quickly learnt the ropes after joining the clinic this academic year. She has practiced employment law for 12 years, including 5 years leading the employment team at Camden Law Centre. Here she set up and ran a student volunteer partnership with SOAS and is now enjoying working with students again. Saher easily connects with clients and students alike and explains legal concepts in plain English. Despite her short time at the clinic it is evident that Saher, also a mediator, is approachable and empathetic. One might see her as a perfect port in the storm when the student advisers need guidance and reassurance.
Behnia Naemi rounds out the core team as the Legal Advice Clinic Coordinator. Behnia is tasked with supporting the development of pro bono projects and student engagement within the Legal Advice Centre. He has been an active member of two award-winning university law clinics, at Hertfordshire and King’s College London, where he contributed to cases including family, immigration, housing, and employment law. With experience spanning multiple clinics and practice areas, Behnia knows how to keep the ship running smoothly—even when the students are steering.
What initially strikes you about this crew is how they’ve created an environment where students feel supported enough to tackle challenging cases without being frozen by the weight of responsibility. It’s a delicate balance: they must provide enough guidance to prevent disasters, while allowing sufficient independence for real learning to occur.
With the clinic officially underway, Behnia is very busy booking the clinic’s first appointments. There has already been a flood of enquiries, 60 so far. That’s more than half of the total number from the clinic’s first year. To keep up with demand, the team is in the midst of training up students for the different clinics, helping them to already meet and advise clients, all whilst also actively recruiting more students to get more hands on deck.
It’s safe to say we might want to reconsider that 'setting the scene' bit, as the action is well underway.
Before we charge headfirst into the action of the developing clinics, we would be remiss not to introduce you to another keystone in this operation (we happen to have multiple). Beyond our operational team of Diana, Saher, and Behnia, we have two remarkable supporting academics: Dr Martin Husovec and Dr Marie Petersmann.
Dr Martin Husovec leads the European Court of Human Rights Intervention Clinic, where students are soon to discover that human rights law and developing digital technology are in constant battle with one another. Dr Husovec’s academic research investigates questions of innovation policy and digital liberties surrounding online platforms, intellectual property, and freedom of expression. He’s one of the leading experts on the EU Digital Services Act and literally wrote the book on it: Principles of the Digital Services Act (an attractive addition to your nightstand).
Beyond academia, Dr Husovec has represented numerous NGOs before the European Court of Human Rights and the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in digital technology cases. His work has been cited repeatedly by Advocate Generals at the CJEU. This is academic equivalent of a standing ovation, except quieter, and with significantly more footnotes.
Dr Marie Petersmann leads the Sustainability Law Clinic, a new addition to the Legal Advice Centre. Dr Petersmann’s work sits at the intersection of international law, ecology, and critical theory. Her book (our academics write a lot of those), When Environmental Protection and Human Rights Collide, is another great addition to your nightstand. In all seriousness, it tackles the fundamental question of why environmental protection laws have become interconnected with human rights, and the effect of this conceptualisation.
Dr Petersmann has truly earned her specialisation in international law. Prior to joining our LSE family (<3), she contributed to institutions across Europe, visiting the Netherlands, Italy, and our neighbours in Scotland.
There you have it. Between the operational masterminds and academic guides, the students appear to be in rather good hands. Those sixty enquiries are still waiting. Time to see what happens when expertise meets real-world legal problems.
We’re halfway through term now and the Legal Advice Centre has come into its own. The clinic is now operating at a pace that was beyond the best-case scenario at the start of term. Our vision of building something substantial is taking shape in real time, one client meeting at a time, one challenging case at a time, one sleepless night spent pondering at a time.
The numbers tell their own story. Thirty-four clients have walked through the doors of the eighth-floor clinic, fifteen of them seeking employment law advice. That’s more than three employment clients per week, which sounds manageable until you realise each case brings its own labyrinthine complexity. The Advice Centre team has been tackling everything from questions of geographical jurisdiction in employment tribunals to the interplay between TUPE and insolvency. Our team reports that these are the sort of engaging legal puzzles that keep you up at night. We’re left contemplating whether this level of intellectual commitment is admirable or slightly concerning. We suspect a mix of both.
The students have organised themselves into firms of six and their newly appointed firm managers are leading meetings weekly to discuss and reflect on cases, engaging in the kind of collaborative learning that no lecture hall can replicate. Beyond their own work, our students report that they’re learning a lot from observing how their lawyer supervisors interact with clients. They’re getting a first-hand look at the delicate balance of empathy and professionalism that can't be taught, only witnessed and gradually absorbed.
The clinic’s success has created its own logistical challenges. Demand has reached the point where extra rooms need to be booked to accommodate all the client meetings. The eighth floor, spacious as it is, wasn’t designed for this level of activity. And it’s about to get busier still. A second cohort, primarily LLM students, has joined the mix. Before meeting their first clients, they completed eight hours of compulsory training, had pre-interview meetings with their supervising lawyers. They’ve quickly become integrated in the team and now work alongside the lawyers present to conduct client interviews.
The clients, for their part, seem rather pleased with the arrangement. Recent feedback from one client captures the spirit of what the clinic is achieving: “It was great seeing you today. I really appreciate any help you can provide. Your students were super lovely it was a real privilege to work with you. I feel I am super lucky that LSE have given me the opportunity for pro-bono advice.”
There’s something rather moving about being called a “privilege to work with” when you’re still perfecting how to draft an advice letter without second-guessing every comma. It’s feedback that reminds everyone why they keep hanging on for dear life.
Six weeks down, many more to go. The students are learning that legal practice is messier, harder, and more rewarding than they imagined. Which is exactly as it should be.
On the 26th of November, the Legal Advice Centre team descended from their eighth-floor hub for the launch of LSE’s Ratio 2025/26 and the Legal Advice Centre in the swanky Marshall Building. The evening brought together the Law School’s annual publication with the Centre in a rather inspired pairing: a magazine about “giving back”, celebrating a clinic built entirely on that principle. We’re giving ourselves a pat on the back for that one.
The event drew academics, students, alumni, and clinic supervisors, filling the ground floor of the Marshall Building with a buzz of excitement. It was the type of gathering where someone invariably left with an idea to alter the future of legal education, scribbled on a napkin somewhere between their second drink and third mince pie.
The Centre’s students set up their own stand, speaking one-on-one with guests about the Centre’s work. Watching our law students voluntarily engage in after-hours legal discussions after a full day of classes and revision tells us our admissions committee does some fantastic work.
Diana, the Legal Advice Centre Director, opened proceedings, followed by Eleni Anayiotou, a clinic student and recent graduate, who delivered a brilliant speech. Eleni made an observation that challenges the very foundation of traditional legal education: the area of law she remembers best comes from a case she was involved with as part of the Employment Law Clinic. Not from textbooks or lectures, but from the messy, challenging work of helping real clients with real problems. It validates everything the Centre stands for.
The first panel, chaired by Diana, brought together Ratio contributors and clinic students Anya Broad, Tom Bower, Felicia Fong, and Kiera Fernandes. They spoke about how the Centre shaped not just their legal skills but their understanding of what it means to practice law with purpose. The second panel featured current students Khadija Omer-Rehman and Oliver Chan, alongside supervising lawyers Aysha Ahmad, barrister at 42BR, and Rita Gupta, family law partner. Chaired by Deputy Legal Advice Centre Director Saher Osman, it demonstrated an often overlooked part of running any legal advice clinic: the generous practising lawyers volunteering to spend their very limited spare time supervising students through their first client matters.
As the reception began, the pride in all of the work that makes the Law School so special could be seen on everyone’s faces. Even your faithful author was let out from behind the typewriter to socialise, which should tell you how special the occasion was. Though admittedly, I spent much of the evening scribbling notes in the corner so I could bring you all along with me.
Watching alumni and current students swap stories about their first client interviews (equal parts terror and triumph) I was reminded why this work matters. There's something rather profound about a profession where giving back isn't an afterthought but the entire point. The evening proved that giving back isn't just a convenient theme for a magazine; it's what happens when legal education remembers it's meant to produce lawyers, not just legal minds.
