Kent Law Clinic: weekly news and updates

Kent Law Clinic’s weekly Tuesday meeting was led by the Student Committee Chair Emily Ham.

Student Committee updates:

  • Enquiries: 58 enquiries have been received in the Law Clinic this week
  • Makeni Pub Quiz, Tuesday 12 February: Kent Law Clinic is hosting the Makeni Pub Quiz at 7pm on Tuesday 12 February in Mungo’s Bar and Diner (in Eliot College) – it’s NOT a quiz about law, everybody is welcome so bring all your friends! Tickets for the quiz are £2 per person (you can pay on the night). All monies raised will help support the Clinic’s Makeni Kent Project, an ongoing international collaboration between staff and students at Kent and a Law Clinic at the University of Makeni (UniMak) in Sierra Leone
  • Makeni Kent Project meeting: The next Makeni Kent Project meeting will be held at 1pm on Monday 11 February in the Magna Carta Room (lower floor, Wigoder Law Building). Anyone with an interest in supporting the project is welcome to come along. The team hope to build on the success of the previous year, when enough funds were raised to bring UniMak students and staff to Kent for a week. If enough funds can be raised this year, the plan is to send a group of Kent Law Clinic students to the Clinic in Sierra Leone for a return visit
  • Case Discussion Session – Impact of Brexit on EU citizens: A series of additional Case Discussion Sessions has been organised by the Law Clinic’s Student Committee in response to student demand for more opportunities to discuss Law Clinic cases. The first session, held last week, featured an in-depth discussion of two family law cases with Clinic Solicitor Philippa Bruce. The next Case Discussion Session will be held from 3pm – 4pm on Wednesday (6 February) in the Magna Carta Room with Graham Tegg. Graham plans to use the session as a springboard to launch a student outreach group that will help support and educate the local Roma community about their rights in the aftermath of Brexit. All interested students are welcome – the more that come, the greater the chance of being able to make a real difference to the local Roma community.
  • Immigration and Asylum Team moot in February: The Law Clinic’s Immigration and Asylum Team (IAT) is holding their next moot at the end of February. Applications to take part in the moot are welcome from all students – more details, and an application form, are available via the IAT’s Facebook Page. The deadline for applications is Wednesday 6 February.
  • Meeting re tenancy agreements for students who rent in private sector: Clinic Solicitor Vivien Gambling will be running an information session at 4.30pm on Tuesday 26 February, in the Moot Court, for student who rent in the private sector, to help inform them about tenancy agreements and their rights as tenants.

Law Clinic case updates:

  • Family Law cases: Last week’s Case Discussion Session provided an excellent opportunity for students with no prior knowledge or experience of family law to delve deep into the law behind two cases that Clinic Solicitor Philippa Law has taken on. Two final-year students, who are working for assessed credit with Philippa as part of the Clinical Option Module, spoke in detail about each case and about the law that applies. One case involves a father who hasn’t had access to his daughter since last July and the second case involves a father who has been denied permission to have his children stay overnight by their mother. Three of the students who attended the Case Discussion Session have now been invited to work on the cases with Philippa. Jess, an LLM student who only began her Master’s in Law at Kent earlier this month, has already spent a morning with Philippa working on the legal drafting for a Child Arrangements Order.
  • Wedding case: Last term, in a new experiment, the Clinic as a whole took on a case involving a caterer and a dispute over catering arrangements for a wedding. Clinic Director Graham Tegg and a group of Clinic students have drafted a defence for the wedding caterer who is being sued in the Small Claims Court for damages. At next Tuesday’s weekly Clinic meeting, in advance of the case being heard at Canterbury County Court on Thursday 21 February, Graham and the students working on the case will speak about the defence they have prepared.

To keep up-to-date with all the latest news and events from the Law Clinic, keep an eye on the Clinic noticeboard (in the main office of the Clinic) and/or subscribe to the Clinic mailing list: kls-clinic@kent.ac.uk

All are welcome to attend the Law Clinic’s weekly meetings held at 2pm on Tuesdays in term time.