Remote Legal Clinic

Our remote legal project started in January 2020 and is a collaborative project between our partners University of Nottingham Legal Department and St Andrews Refugee Services in Cairo, Egypt. Law Students from the University of Nottingham have been fully trained through Across Borders and StARS to remotely assist refugees individuals and families to prepare appeals for negative refugee status determination decisions. The students focus on the factual and corroboration aspects of the case as well as the legal argument. The students also collaboratively work on resettlement external referrals. This both benefits the students, who obtain experience in international law while also helping refugees in Egypt access safe legal routes to the UK.

Over the last 2 years, Siobhan Allen, Coordinator of the Refugee Status Determination Team at StARS, has trained a small group of law students, who work remotely with unaccompanied asylum seeking children in Cairo, helping StARS to continue their specialised services to this particularly vulnerable group.

What have we achieved so far?

In 2021/2022, 4 Nottingham law students supported 41 individual and family cases in Cairo. Volunteers stated:

'It has allowed us to gain practical insight into international law and has influenced our decisions to pursue a career in humanitarian and international law either practically or academically' Our projects aim to enhance the experience of refugees being resettled, providing opportunities, creating community connection, and ensuring refugees not only survive but also thrive in the UK.

“Our work has allowed us to develop research skills in finding up-to-date, relevant information on each refugees country of origin to corroborate their stories with, as part of the refugee status claim and appeal process. Attention to detail when drafting legal documents is necessary, especially that they follow a specific formatting and writing style. It has allowed us to develop our legal skills and background both individually and as part of a team, especially after working on a Podcast Project as part of Refugee Week 2022.”

See what else students and legal teams have to say in our social media posts here

What’s next?

We have just received further funding to continue our project in 2022/2023 and are moving into our third cohort of the project with Nottingham University. We hope to expand and partner with other universities moving into 2023!

For further information on our other projects see; Community Interpreting Courses or Real Resettlement Project