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law clinic

The River House Law Clinic is a collaborative venture between The River House Trust, the solicitors' firm H.C.L. Hanne & Co and the School of Law at Birkbeck College, University of London. The River House Law Clinic provides vitally needed legal advice for people living with HIV, many of whom still experience unlawful discrimination in work, housing and other areas.

If you would like to access legal advice, please call River House on 020 8753 5190 in the first instance. Legal areas currently covered are:

Family - Employment - Housing - Crime - Wills

The process works like this:

  • When you speak with us at River House, we will take some details from you such as name, address, contact details and a brief outline of the issue you wish to discuss. At this time, you will be given a PIN number, which is a method of ensuring that we maintain your confidentiality. It is important that you retain this number - otherwise our law clinic partners will not be permitted to discuss your case with you. Also, you will be given a appointment time to receive an initial assessment call from one of our Birkbeck College of Law students volunteers - these fortnightly calls take place on Mondays between 5pm-6pm. 
     
  • During the assessment call, the student will take full details of your legal query and he/she will start a case file for you. It is important that you have all relevant documents to hand during the call. The Birkbeck law student's notes, and any further research, are passed to a specialist solicitor at HCL Hanne & Co for review.
     
  • Should your query require further input and/or advice, an appointment will be made for you to meet with the solicitor at River House. Solicitor consultations are held fortnightly on Wednesdays between 5pm-6.30pm. Where possible, your Birkbeck law student assessor will also attend this meeting. Occasionally, for time sensitive issues, you may be invited to meet with a solicitor at HCL Hanne & Co's office in Clapham on a more immediate basis.

Assessment calls and solicitor consultations take place on alternate weeks.

Please note that we are currently restricting access to the Law Clinic to River House clients. This is to ensure that our policies, procedures and referral routes are operating efficiently before we open access to the clinic to non members.

 Please call us should you require any further information regarding the Law Clinic on 0208 753 5190.