'Using law as a tool to bring about social change': Cambridge Pro Bono Project Colloquium Series

02/23/17 • 47 min

On 22 February 2017 the Cambridge Pro Bono Project Colloquium Series hosted a talk by Shauneen Lambe, Executive Director and Co-Founder of Just for Kids Law, giving a talk on her experiences, entitled "Using law as a tool to bring about social change". She discussed her work representing people on death row in the USA, and Just for Kids Law's campaigns and legal challenges which have changed laws and policy in education, youth justice and community care.

Shauneen is a barrister in England and Wales and an attorney in Louisiana, USA, where she represented people facing the death penalty. In 1999 she helped establish the charity Reprieve, remaining on the board until 2006.

In 2006 Shauneen and Aika Stephenson set up Just for Kids Law, a charity that provides 360 degree support and legal representation to vulnerable children and young people in the UK and drives systemic change. In 2015 Shauneen was made an Eisenhower Fellow. She is also a World Economic Forum ‘Young Global Leader,’ and one of NESTA/The Observer’s ‘Britain’s New Radicals.’ She was chosen as a Shackleton Leader in 2011 and an Ashoka Fellow in 2012. Shauneen was shortlisted for Legal Aid Lawyer of the Year and Liberty’s Human Rights Lawyer of the Year.

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'Cause lawyering and immigration law: more harm than good?': Cambridge Pro Bono Project Colloquium Series

On 6 February 2017 the Cambridge Pro Bono Project Colloquium Series hosted a talk by Colin Yeo, immigration barrister at Garden Court Chambers, and founding editor of the Free Movement blog - the UK's main immigration law blog.

The talk reviewed some of the great results that have been achieved through immigration litigation, for individuals but also for classes or groups of migrants. Colin then considered some bad results of cause lawyering in immigration law and asks whether litigating immigration issues actually shows respect for and therefore legitimises those laws.

This talk came at a fascinating time given the most major cause-lawyering case of its time, the Article 50 case (Miller v Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union), has just been handed down by the UK Supreme Court.

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Cambridge Pro Bono Project Lecture: '(Democratic) Politics by Other Means: Public Interest Litigation in South Africa'

On 9 March 2017 the Cambridge Pro Bono Project (CPP) hosted Jason Brickhill to speak on the topic '(Democratic) Politics by Other Means: Public Interest Litigation in South Africa'.

He spoke about his experiences using law as an instrument of justice for the vulnerable and marginalised, including poor, homeless and landless people, at the Legal Resources Centre, South Africa's largest public interest, human rights law clinic.

Jason has been an advocate at the Johannesburg Bar and was formerly the director of the Constitutional Litigation Unit, Legal Resources Centre (South Africa). He is currently a DPhil Candidate at Oxford, where his research focuses on public interest litigation in South Africa.