Life Matters

Life Matters is a community project established by a large proportion of our enthusiastic trainees, working in partnership with our local charity of the year, the Blackfriars Settlement. The trainees work in small groups to prepare and deliver entertaining and interactive presentations, involving role-plays and discussions on legal topics relevant to the elderly group at Blackfriars. These include how to make a will, an overview of the benefits system, common scams and Lasting Powers of Attorney. The presentations occur monthly at the Blackfriars Settlement’s community centre in Southwark to enable the project to achieve maximum attendance.

To begin with our trainees held a consultation event by inviting 15 elderly members from the Blackfriars Settlement to our offices to discuss which legal issues were relevant to the members’ everyday lives. This proved to be a great way to drive the project forward. Each group then prepared their own presentations on the chosen issues, overseen by partners at the firm with knowledge of the relevant law.

Progress to date

Over the last two years, the Life Matters project has engaged 35 trainees (93% of the trainees in 2009/10 and 66% in 2008/9) and supported approximately 80 members of our partner charity’s elderly group who are aged between 60-93 years.

“A young, friendly group of trainee solicitors from Speechly Bircham enriched the lives of our older people with very useful information in a light-hearted but informative performances.’’
Elderly Person Co-ordinator for the Blackfriars Settlement

“I was impressed with the young people from Speechly Bircham, they were polite and very informative in layman’s language. The presentations on Wills and Lasting Powers of Attorney, were very interesting, and the players were very amusing and to the point. I would like them to call again, they were very helpful.’’
Member of the Blackfriars Settlement’s elderly group