Article in Solicitors Journal on Young Legal Aid Lawyers and the march for the alternative
" 30 March 2011
They came, they saw, they sung: YLs march on :Young legal aid lawyers from up and down the country descended on London last Saturday to join the March for the Alternative, rocking up with a handmade banner, a gospel choir, and even a few Ghurkhas thrown in for good measure.
The gang were part of a splinter group of lawyers spearheaded by the Justice 4 All as well as the Law Society’s Sound Off For Justice campaign.
The Young Legal Aid Lawyers (YLAL) contingent teamed up with legal top dogs for a pre-demo demo outside the Royal Courts of Justice, before joining the main throng for the five-hour march to Hyde Park.
A tub-thumping speech from Mike Mansfield QC kicked off the event, with shadow justice secretary Sadiq Khan and Blair babe Harriet Harman swinging by to show support.
Didn’t make it to the rally? Here’s an account of the day from three YLs
Carita Thomas, immigration solicitor at Howells
“I travelled down from Sheffield to the march, but it was worth the trip (even the 5.30am wake up call).
"My personal highlights were seeing young legal aid lawyers from London, Leeds, Birmingham and Sheffield together and being there en masse with others from the advice sector. One London lawyer had lost her group and joined ours, so I had the chance to chat about the challenges of legal aid in a totally different office to mine.
"The march has given energy to our campaign and we have lots of plans to press our message home to MPs about how the proposals will harm the most vulnerable in society. Legal aid is still not high enough on the agenda when we talk about cuts, but Saturday showed that lawyers of all ages and backgrounds really care about how these will affect our clients – and will walk for five hours across London to prove it!”
Charlotte Image, family solicitor at Wainwright & Cummins
“The atmosphere at the march was very family-friendly – at least while I was there! The media has focused quite a lot on the violence towards the end, but I didn't see any of that and lots of people (including our chair, Laura Janes) had brought their children along. There was a definite carnivalesque theme to the march, with lots of fancy dress and various bands (including bhangra drums and pipers for the Fire Brigade Union) helping to keep people entertained for the long walk through town.
"My choir, the London Youth Gospel Choir, along with the AllStars music group had volunteered to create some noise for Sound Off For Justice. We sang our usual songs but changed some of the words, so that, for instance, the final line in Bob Marley’s One Love became "let's get together and stop the cuts". One of the most popular songs we did was Down by the Riverside with the following words:
Gonna save our legal aid (Sound Off)
Sound off for justice (Sound Off)
Sound off for justice (Sound Off)
Sound off for justice
Gonna save our legal aid (Sound off)
Sound off for justice
You can't take our rights away (Rights away)
"There were huge numbers of people at the march. At Westminster Bridge I tried to take a picture of the whole march - it took five photos to fit it all in and that was just the part going along Embankment. It was definitely a lot of fun and well worth it to show our support for legal aid.”
Katie Brown, housing solicitor at Philcox Gray & Co
“People marching alongside us were curious to read the words on our banner, as if they could not quite believe either that there were any young lawyers who would dedicate themselves to working in the legal aid system or that there would be lawyers marching against the cuts.
"Well, there were certainly plenty of lawyers on the march, including Mike Mansfield QC, who rounded up the troops outside the Royal Courts of Justice before the main event. Another recognisable face in the crowd was Ken Livingstone who wandered past us down Whitehall – probably to make sure that the Trafalgar Square encampment didn’t start without him.
"It was great to see so many lawyers from different areas of the country and a variety of fields marching together with one voice against the proposals. The five hours it took to walk or, rather, meander from Temple to Hyde Park gave us an opportunity to brainstorm the next steps in our fight to protect the legal aid system. It’s not just the cuts in funding that concern us, but also the radical proposal to overturn how people access civil legal aid advice through the introduction of a telephone gateway system. That’s not something you can easily shout about during a march (it doesn’t fit too neatly into any chant) but it could have the most devastating impact on vulnerable clients being able to access essential legal help. Following the march we agreed that it’s important to maintain the pressure and campaigning work from now on, so that when the government publishes its response to the consultation process after Easter we’re ready to challenge the most damaging proposals.”
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