Unlocking potential: Lawyers Who Care

Lawyers Who Care CIC was founded to address the stark injustice that children and young people who enter care face increased barriers to pursuing a legal career. The harsh reality is that when a child becomes care experienced, most commonly due to abuse or neglect, their likelihood of reaching university plummets to just 14% in comparison to 47% of all young people, according to a 2023 report by CIVITAS. That means, fewer than 3 in 20 care-experienced people enter higher education. For many, entering a legal career can simply feel beyond their grasp. Lawyers Who Care argues that this is not due to lack of skills, which care-experienced people have in abundance, but lack of opportunities. The lack of opportunities, as well as low expectations for children in care, are what Lawyers Who Care has set out to change. We seek to be led by care-experienced voices, plug the gaps in support, challenge the stigma and help mentees access financial resources.

‘As President, I am particularly aware of the difficulties that young care leavers experience, I am therefore particularly keen to encourage those who wish to practice law by supporting LWC in its work.’ Sir Andrew McFarlane, President of the Family Division

One of the greatest barriers is the absence of a supportive parent to help care-experienced people navigate legal careers. A lack of family connections or social capital to access work experience and networking opportunities presents huge barriers. Worse still, care experienced young people are often cautioned to limit their expectations, co-founder and chief executive Lucy Barnes was told to ‘be realistic’ about a career in law until her foster father believed in her and first introduced the idea to her.

Financial resources are yet another challenge to pursuing a legal career. Care experienced people lack the ‘bank of mum and dad’ and so a core value of Lawyers Who Care is that Chambers and firms should offer paid work experience and we collaborate with our mentorship organisations in a consultancy capacity on this. Lawyers Who Care also provides an Inclusion Inventory to Mentees to signpost scholarships and other support available, as well as providing a supportive community and free webinars and events tailored for care-experienced people pursuing a career in law.

Breaking down barriers

Lawyers Who Care exists to ensure talented and gifted people from care-experienced backgrounds can aspire to enter the legal profession. For this, they need a mentor trained by Lawyers Who Care in our ‘Care Aware’ and ‘Trauma-Informed’ programmes, alongside paid work experience, inclusive networking opportunities as well as peer and community support. Lawyers Who Care is currently training our first cohort of 30 mentors and mentees and delivering a programme of webinars to help mentees break down the barriers to achieving their future legal career.

Launched on 17 May 2024, Lawyers Who Care set the stage for what inclusivity could mean for care-experienced people. We hosted our launch sponsored by Garden Court Chambers with a care-experienced rapper performing, a comfortable dress code, free entry and inclusive catering options – we led by example demonstrating what we believe inclusivity could look like.

Erasing the stigma

Lawyers Who Care recognises that people with care experience, specifically care leavers, are underrepresented in the legal profession but their life experience and the skills they have developed to overcome the challenges they’ve faced means they have untapped advantages and talent to contribute to the profession. Encouraging more care-experienced people to study law and aspire to being a lawyer will lead to a more diverse and better skilled legal profession.

We recognise this is a huge challenge. Anyone entering the legal profession from an unconventional background needs to demonstrate they have the aptitude to meet the demands of being a lawyer. Care-experienced applicants may face the additional stigma associated with their background. Lawyers Who Care will erode any negative associations with care experience by demonstrating the skills and aptitude this life experience brings. If we can harness this potential, Chambers and firms will be tapping into a pool of talent.

Since Lawyers Who Care’s launch, we’ve already been approached by established practitioners coming to us and sharing that they spent time in care but would not discuss this due to the stigma. This demonstrates that the issue is not the aptitude of individual care-experienced people, but of prejudice and systemic discrimination.

Building a community of skilled mentors

We are inviting chambers to become mentorship organisations and make a commitment to supporting care-experienced people enter the profession and break down the barriers they face. Many care-experienced people experience the justice system and this drives their passion to pursue a legal career.

Chambers which sign up as mentorship organisations can access our specialist ‘Care Aware’ and ‘Trauma Informed’ mentor training for established practitioners as well as safeguarding training and ongoing support.

‘I thought it was absolutely brilliant.’

‘The session was full of wonderful knowledge and experiences.’

‘... the [trauma-informed] training was so good ... some of the best & most informative training I have done for a long time.’ – trainee mentors

Mentors sign up for a two-year relationship with their mentee. The mentors and mentees are carefully matched and alongside regular check-ins there are webinars providing a greater understanding of the challenges faced by care-experienced people.

Our first cohort of mentors and mentees are just about to embark on their two-year mentoring relationship and it is already clear that the training and becoming part of this new community of ‘care aware’ lawyers is reaping benefits.

If you would like to sign up to register to be part of the next cohort of mentorship organisations, please contact info@lawyerswhocare.org for the attention of our fantastic care-experienced C.O.O Gemma Creamer.