PLP’s strategic partnership with the Lankelly Chase Foundation is now under way. The purpose of the partnership is to provide support, training and advice to Lankelly Chase grant-holders, with a view to tackling deep-rooted social injustice.   There is more about the project and our partners at the project page.

We have appointed Lisa Vanhala and Jacqui Kinghan, researchers and socio-legal scholars at UCL, as learning partners for the project.  Work on phase one, which focused on looking at how and when legal intervention can best be used to tackle systemic unfairness, is nearing its conclusion.

Lisa Vanhala and Jacqui Kinghan comment:

‘’e’re delighted to be working with PLP and Lankelly Chase on this project, which sits at the cutting edge of our conceptual understanding and empirical knowledge of how organisations use of the law. Research shows that there is a good deal of variation in use of the law – litigation, legal education, provision of legal advice etc. – across different policy areas and focusing on different audiences. We have relatively little understanding of how groups addressing severe and multiple disadvantage have used the law (beyond a few key examples) and whether they have been effective in truly changing systems and practices on the ground.

 After a first phase of reviewing existing literature and considering potential models for our learning strategy we are excited about our next steps with PLP.  This involves convening a high-level advisory group to bring in expertise from those working at the front lines of use of the law and systems change and putting together a learning process that will help partners capture and reflect on lessons learned along the way.’

For more information on the project please contact Ollie Persey o.persey@publiclawproject.org.uk