Legal Advice Centre Diary

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.