Community engagement, outreach and education.

Our founding principles provide that student members should not only advise and represent those with legal issues, but that they should also work to empower the community by assisting and/or providing the knowledge and skills necessary to reduce the likelihood of a legal issue occurring in the first place.

We believe this dual approach is the way to minimise the access to justice problem that exists in North East Scotland. 

Both independently and in collaboration with other established community groups and charities, we provide information and practical assistance on a range of subjects. Our outreach initiatives are detailed below.

Workshop Sector

Educating and inspiring the next generation is one of ALP’s key aims. Therefore, our Workshop Sector aims to make the law clear and accessible to public school pupils and the wider community in Northeast Scotland, helping to reduce the access-to-justice problem. This includes both educating and informing school pupils on the current law, the Scottish Legal System, and reducing stereotypes surrounding the legal sector.

We offer a variety of workshops aimed at tackling different issues we see in our legal system and wider society.

Mock Trials Workshop

This workshop can be presented in Primary and Secondary schools. Pupils will cover all procedures leading up to a court trial. This involves engagement in a practical mock trial with the students taking on the main roles in a fictitious criminal case. Including both prosecution and defence. Aiming to raise awareness as to what a court case involves and how a trial can impact everyone involved.

“So You Want To Study Law?” Workshop

This workshop is aimed at Secondary school pupils in their senior phase and provides students with a substantial understanding of the many career pathways into the legal sector. Including further education and apprenticeships. This will also include an insight into general university life. The workshop includes various activities throughout, such as the ‘Myth-Buster’, where students will tackle common misunderstandings surrounding the legal sector.

Consent Workshop

This workshop is aimed at Secondary school pupils in their senior phase. Sexual offences are a serious problem in our society, as a result this workshop deals with the law surrounding consent and the implications of not acting with consent. This workshop highlights the various sexual offences found in the Scottish legal system, placing emphasis on what consent should look like to maintain safe practices.

Freshers Insight Workshop

This workshop is aimed at Secondary school pupils looking to enter further education, particularly, university. The aim of this workshop is to provide an insightful foundation on what to expect when starting further education – such as moving away from home. This workshop also covers important topics relevant to student life more generally such as staying safe late at night.

Online Safety Workshop

This workshop is aimed at pupils in their senior phase of Primary school. This has proved very effective in educating pupils on the potential dangers of being online and how to protect themselves when using the internet. This workshop covers password security, identifying a safe website and how to stay safe when gaming online.

For more information and enquiries about any of our workshops, please contact general@abdnlawproject.com

Law Reform Sector

The Law Reform Sector seeks to reduce Scotland’s access to justice gap by using the legal knowledge and research skills of law students to identify areas of the law in need of reform. Its core purpose is to produce high-quality publications aimed at policymakers, legal bodies, and advice organisations with the intention of highlighting deficiencies in the current system and encouraging meaningful change.

Simple Procedure

This is one of our current initiatives proposed by the Law Reform Sector. The aim is to increase the Simple Procedure Claim in Scotland to £10’000, reflecting the realities of the cost-of-living crisis and the rising value of everyday disputes. Their publication draws on comparative analysis with England and Wales to demonstrate how higher thresholds can improve access to justice. Their research concludes that raising the threshold would better align the procedure with current economic conditions and deliver tangible benefits for both claimants and the wider justice system.

Employment Tribunal

This is the newest proposal made by the Law Reform Sector. Their primary goal is to increase awareness and understanding in the employment tribunal process by demystifying the complex forms, procedural steps and evidential requirements that claimants must navigate. Their publication will be shared with legal clinics and legal advice lines as a resource to share with potential clients. By improving accessibility and comprehension this initiative seeks to empower claimants to engage confidently with the tribunal system.

Campaigns & PR

The Campaigns & PR Sector work to narrow the access to justice gap by informing the local community of the legal and social issues affecting them in an accessible and comprehensible way.

The sector is working to inform students on how to balance studies with mental wellness through the Take 5 Campaign. Additionally, the team has been conducting interviews with local legal professionals to inform the public about routes into a legal career. These efforts reflect ALP’s commitment to bridging the access-to-justice gap by ensuring that legal knowledge is accessible to the wider community, not just to those with prior experience or understanding of the law.

Campaigns and PR’s newest initiative includes adding to the website's blog section by making information on issues Sector Members are interested in accessible to the public.

Charities

The Charities Sector aims to support charities and causes in our local community that are important to the Project’s aims.

Since 2010, ALP has run the Prison Project, which supports reintegration into the community, the stage in the offending cycle where offenders are susceptible to social pressures leading them to relapse into criminal behaviour. By equipping prisoners with the skills and confidence to re-enter the workplace, we hope to break this cycle.

We run yearly donation drives for various local charities to tackle poverty. Notably, we have had great success in our foodbank drives for CFine and TLC, and our Christmas donation drive for Grampian Women’s Aid.

The sector is currently working to widen its scope by creating new initiatives.

Our History 

The Aberdeen Law Project is the first student-founded law project in Scotland.

We are extremely proud to be the first law project in the United Kingdom to be founded, led and operated by students. Established in 2009, by then student Ryan Whelan, The Aberdeen Law Project ("ALP") is now one of the largest law projects in the UK. 

Ryan was acutely aware of the North East’s access to justice gap.  Convinced that law students know more law than they think, and can be of greater assistance than they might believe, he was passionately of the view that students could play a valuable role in reducing the access to justice gap. He thought it was a win-win: students could obtain practical experience and the community could gain advice and representation. The question was “how?” 

What was lacking was a vehicle through which students could put their skills to use for the good of the community. With encouragement from a small group of other students, Professor Margaret Ross, Professor Roderick Paisley and Mr Greg Gordon, a company was formed and ALP born. 

The enthusiasm for the law project was beyond all expectation. Ryan put out a call for student volunteers. He expected a handful to respond. Not so. Over 100 volunteered. Next, Ryan turned to the community. They were the people best placed to know if and how such a resource could help. The enthusiasm was equally overwhelming. It was a resounding yes from those in the justice gap. Last came the profession. The student team approached numerous lawyers in an effort to obtain training and support. The response was remarkable; more offers were received than could be taken advantage of. 

We’re not just different in terms of how we came to be; we’re different in terms of what we do and how we do it. Some of what makes us different: 

• We operate through an independent company called Casus Omissus, which means gap in the law. We are not part of The University of Aberdeen, but we operate in partnership with it.

• We are a law project, not a law clinic. This is both deliberate and important. Our clinical dimension is where we provide advice and representation. It is vital, but it is just one part of what we do. The other part, the larger part, involves engaging, educating and empowering the community. Our founding principles are clear: ALP should work to reduce the access to justice problem, not just “fire-fight” existing issues. 

• People from across the world train, mentor, supervise and donate to ALP.  It’s remarkable and greatly appreciated.    

In its first year of operation ALP met with numerous organisations and individuals. We even made international headlines. Since then it’s been more of the same. Every year we have gone on to do more and more. Highlights include devising and implementing a host of innovative education programmes, appearing before the Scottish Parliament and winning cases that have become reported decisions. As of January 2020, we estimate that ALP students have processed more than 7,000 enquiries, taken on just short of 1,000 clients and educated more than 8,000 school pupils, third sector workers and prisoners in the North of Scotland. But this is only the beginning. We have more people to help, more boundaries to push. 

If you can help us or we can help you, please do get in touch.