Law Clinic Director recognised at prestigious family law awards

The director of Essex Law Clinic has earned special recognition at a prestigious family law awards event celebrating the top family law firms and organisations in the country.

Liz Fisher-Frank was highly commended in the Community Interaction category of the Lexis Nexis Family Law Awards due to her work in the law clinic, providing family law advice services to the local community.

Liz has been working with student volunteers to provide free legal advice to members of the community, including holding face-to-face appointments with charities and in schools across Colchester and Tendring in a bid to resolve family issues and prevent conflict.

She was the only representative from the Higher Education sector to be shortlisted for an award and was competing with leading law firms and barristers chambers.

"I am delighted that the family law work in the community has been shortlisted and highly commended in these awards,” said Liz.

“Providing much-needed advice to clients through our local community collaborations is a core strength of our clinic and this in turn, provides important educational skills and opportunities to our excellent law clinic student volunteers."

The law clinic has also been working with a number of partners and charities in north Essex as part of its commitment to supporting and working out in the community.

This includes the likes of Tendring Families First and Next Chapter.

Liz Pickford, CEO of Tendring Families First, added: “Through this partnership with Essex Law Clinic, our families can attend outreach law clinics delivered locally in our schools, to access free legal advice from law students and their supervising solicitor.

"Offering this locally delivered service in schools allows for our often-vulnerable families to access advice, when otherwise they may not do so.

“This service is often a crucial lifeline for parents to be able to move forward and most importantly to reduce conflict between parents impacting on the children. “We are immensely grateful to Liz Fisher Frank and Essex University Law Clinic for their support.”

Nicola Taylor, Community DAP Service Manager at Next Chapter, said: “Liz and the team at Essex Law Clinic provide a lifeline to those clients we work with who for various reasons are not able to access legal aid.

“Sometimes these reasons are out of the client’s control and in some cases the circumstances are specifically orchestrated by their perpetrators and forms part of their cycle of abuse.

“If it was not for the work that Liz and the team do these vulnerable clients would not get the legal advice and support, they need and would not be able to break the cycle.

“Liz and the team are literally changing lives and we at Next Chapter are extremely grateful for all that they do.”