Dr Jo Wilding

What happens when you start with a hostile asylum system that sets people up to fail and then persistently degrade the legal aid system people depend on to accompany them through it, to put together the evidence in the framework of the law.

50th Anniversary Report - Rights of Women

Today we’re proud to launch Rights of Women’s 50th Anniversary Report - a powerful reflection on legal change over the past decade.

Read the report and watch the full launch event with guest speaker Dame Nicole Jacobs, Domestic Abuse Commissioner:

www.rightsofwomen.org.uk/about-us/rig...

Excellent blog and important argument by the brilliant Central England Law Centre @ce-lawcentre.bsky.social and Liz Curran on the problem of the poorest people being charged fees they can't afford for the evidence to (somewhat) ease their poverty.

Fascinating post by my brilliant colleague.

Exciting conference in Spain next September on the role of truth and evidence in regional human rights adjudication. dissect.ugent.be/events/inter...
Abstracts by 22 December.

My article is featured on the front page of Laws journal (and it's free to read). It is of course about legal aid, and also about how that interacted with asylum policy in the 2022-24 period.

Love the cover photo and good to see it finally in print! Chapter 18 is mine: Undocumented- Insecure Immigration Status and its Impact on Children and Young People. The book contains a huge range of contributions incl one on Palestinian youth under occupation, written before the genocide started.

Legal aid lawyers spend quarter of day on unpaid work Landmark research reveals hidden and non-chargeable cost of managing cases and contracts.

My new research report with @wearelapg.bsky.social shows legal aid practitioners spend a quarter of their working day, on average, on non-chargeable tasks essential to the running of their legal aid cases or contract: www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/legal-a...

Yes, exactly that. If the auditing system caught those (very occasional but serious) cases like this and Blavo (that the contracting and payment systems perversely incentivise) then the micromanagement might be justifiable, but this shows what a counterproductive waste of money it is.

work bcs of the stress of audits which ignore quality. Current system drives out quality and misses apparent exploitation.

thousands of people's life & death cases potentially messed up. What was the Legal Aid Agency doing? No apparent oversight, yet a charity doing good quality work had ALL its payment recouped because a caseworker's VALID DBS certificate was at home not in the office-and now does v little legal aid

Immigration law firm making £1.7m in legal aid loses contract over standards Thousands of asylum seekers left without lawyers after firm took on thousands of cases with just five solicitors

This firm actually only had 2 people accredited to do asylum legal aid work, and set up 7 new offices doing asylum cases (for a total of 8). They closed 2,580 cases in one year, which is clearly impossible if those 2 people are actually doing the work. Contract now withdrawn, but only after

'We don't have the luxury of despair. The global bargain around sanctuary and the global commitment to sharing responsibility are being undermined.' 122 million ppl displaced by conflict, 2/3 stay in neighbouring countries. We have to raise voices for sanctuary:Vicky Tennant of UNHCR, at EARC conf.

200K Hong Kongers arrived in UK on safe legal routes and most people barely noticed. A tiny number arrive on small boats and things melt down. Safe legal routes not the whole answer but an important part. EARC Eastern Arc Sanctuary Solidarities conference.

New article just published- 'The Shifting Sands of Legal Aid Deserts: Access to Justice for Asylum in 2022–24', in a special issue of Laws on refugee protection, edited by the brilliant @raawiyah.bsky.social @apowelllaw.bsky.social and Ruvi Ziegler. Free to read: www.mdpi.com/2075-471X/14...

Here's an idea. Instead we could pay proper fees to proper lawyers and caseworkers to do a proper job in (maybe going too far now) a properly functioning system.

Does frankly appalling job, putting v vulnerable people at huge risk. Either closes or is closed down-not clear which. Now thousands of people with cases already messed up, no hope of new rep given overall dire shortage, serious risk of injustice to them. Public money wasted on predictable disaster.

Here's (part of) the problem with treating legal aid as a market. One firm bids (successfully) for contracts in immigration law in several advice desert areas. Begins taking on 2,797 cases in year to 31 March 2025, so it no longer looks like a provision shortage in those areas. (No newer data yet).

Exactly. We supported a woman who had a shrapnel injury from childhood and limited mobility, who was hospitalised after she fell down a badly lit stairwell in an asylum hotel when her room was on a higher floor but asylum seekers were not allowed to use the lifts!!

‘It’s about justice’: the couple pushing for legal aid for Windrush scandal claims Home Office behaviour has convinced Hetticia and Vanderbilt McIntosh that only experts lawyers can change system

Great to see the brilliant McIntoshes in the Guardian, arguing for the right to funded legal representation for the Windrush Compensation Scheme. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025... Please sign their petition (link in the article) if you haven't already.

Sign the Petition Stop Mass Redundancies at Lancaster University – Hold Senior Management Accountable

Hello UK friends - please, please could you sign this petition against the job cuts at my place of work - 1 in 4 us will be out of a job by August next year if we don't stop the cuts. And once you've signed it, please share. We need your help! www.change.org/p/stop-mass-...

People need legal help: The value of legal representation in the Windrush Compensation Scheme Survivors of the Home Office Windrush Scandal are receiving drastically less compensation than they deserve. Giving them access to free legal advice can change this, finds this JUSTICE report.

The article is based on research by me, JUSTICE and Dechert LLP which you can find at justice.org.uk/people-need-...

You can still sign the petition for funded legal representation here - www.change.org/p/fund-free-...

Also today - My new article for the Conversation on why funded legal representation is absolutely necessary for the Windrush Compensation Scheme, and other redress schemes for state harms.
theconversation.com/windrush-sca...

We analysed application data from four rounds of Access to Justice Foundation funding, comprising 560 applications from 350 organisations over a 17-month period to build a picture of the advice sector - part of the ESRC-funded Social Welfare and Immigration Legal Aid Mapping (SWILAmap) project.

‘Overwhelmed by the general demand for advice’: a picture of the not-for-profit legal advice sector in the 2020s This paper analyses a dataset of 560 applications from 350 organisations in the UK (though mostly England and Wales) for funding from the Access to Justice Foundation over a 17-month period, as a m...

My article, co-written with Dr Hannah Selby, is now available open access (ie free to read) in the Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law. 'Overwhelmed by the general demand for Advice: a picture of the not-for-profit legal advice sector in the 2020s'
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Ben Jennings on starvation in Gaza – cartoon Hamas sends a ceasefire proposal to the Israeli government as famine threatens Palestinians’ lives

Ben Jennings on starvation in Gaza – cartoon www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

more person starves to death, dies from lack of medicine or is murdered while queuing for food aid.

Israel is, without doubt, committing genocide in Palestine.
The UK government needs to 1) stop all arms sales and all other financial, political and military support for Israel: 2) do everything in its power to prevent this continuing and 3) recognise Palestinian statehood asap.
Now, before one

A series of headlines about children and civilians in Gaza being killed while waiting for aid. Underneath, text reads, "THIS MUST STOP". Le Monde: 93 Palestinians killed by Israeli army in Gaza while trying to collect aid, civil defense says BBC News: Children queuing for supplements killed in Israeli strike in Gaza, hospital says The Guardian: Killing of young siblings at Gaza water point shows seeking life's essentials now a deadly peril

The reckless and illegal killing of civilians waiting for lifesaving aid in Gaza must end.

No one should have to risk their lives seeking food, water or medical care.

Sign the Petition Fund Free Legal Representation for Windrush Compensation Claims

Hetticia McIntosh, one of the Windrush claimants who took part in our research, has started a petition for funded legal representation for Windrush Compensation applicants: url.uk.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/kKkyCKQ50C...

If you need persuading to sign, our report is at justice.org.uk/people-need-...