Legal Intern

Vacancy at Clan Childlaw Ltd

Legal Intern

Salary £ 13.45 (Real Living Wage)

Edinburgh

Details

If you are successful you will have the opportunity to gain hands-on experience in casework, legal research and develop an understanding of the unique skills required to be a lawyer for children.  

You will be part of a dynamic, rights-based organisation that uses strategic litigation to drive systemic change and create a lasting impact on the lives of children and young people.  

This opportunity is open to Scottish, care-experienced or estranged students, aged up to 26, who are studying Law LLB (or equivalent) and have completed their 2nd year at a Scottish university or who will have completed their 2nd year at time of appointment. 

At Clan Childlaw, we recognise that care experience can mean different things to different people. We define care experience as someone who, at any stage of their life, has been looked after or in care. This may include: 

• Foster care
• Adoption
• Residential care
• Secure care
• Kinship care
• Being looked after at home (for example, having a social worker while staying with parents/carers)
• Care leavers

We will also consider applications from estranged students. We know that estrangement can be a sensitive and varied experience that looks different for everyone.  

At Clan Childlaw, we define estranged as someone who is no longer in contact with both parents, adoptive parents/carers, or their only living parent due to a permanent breakdown in the relationship.  

We are looking for a reliable team member who is proactive and motivated with a genuine interest in children’s rights and an eagerness to develop skills in legal practice, research and advocacy.   

Our Legal Internship will offer the opportunity to gain hands-on experience in casework, legal research and develop an understanding of the unique skills required to be a lawyer for children. 

As an intern, you will: 

• Handle calls and assist with day-to-day casework
• Undertake legal research and maintain legal knowledge
• Attend team meetings
• Maintain diaries and make appointments when required
• Contribute to maintaining and improving practice including shaping and developing the internship as part of our pilot project

Clan wants a Scotland where all children and young people’s rights are respected, protected, and fulfilled. For that to happen, Scotland has to be a place where all children and young people can stand up for their rights. That means children and young people need: 

• Lawyers that are experts in working with children
• People around them who can enable them to use their rights and amplify their voices
• To be respected as rights-holders, who are entitled to hold duty-bearers to account if their rights are not fulfilled.

Clan is an award-winning, independent children’s charity that actively supports children and young people to take ownership of their rights. We are the only charity in Scotland that provides free, independent legal representation exclusively for children and young people, which is child-centred by design. Because our lawyers work directly with children and young people whose lives are affected by legal decisions, we bring that unique practice-based knowledge to every aspect of our work. This includes our specialist training, our helpline supporting others who help children to use their voices and their rights, and our work to influence children’s rights respecting changes to practice, policy and law. 

• We stand with others who help children use their rights–

Through our membership and training for legal professionals and in legal education we are making being a “children’s lawyer” an accredited legal skill set in Scotland. Our practical training and helpline and support for advocacy in Children’s Hearings  provides  adults that support children and young people information and guidance that they can use to empower young people to stand up for their rights.  

• We stand out through the excellence of our work–

We want our work to have as much impact as possible. We listen to what children and young people tell us about what they need from lawyers and others who support them to use their rights. We use what we learn to develop and design the services they need and talk about why young people’s rights matter, and why children and young people need lawyers.   

• We stand for change–

We are lawyers for children and young people representing children and young people in court, at Children’s Hearings, and in important meetings working to give them equal opportunity to heard and use their rights. We take cases that make change for individual children and young people and help shape better rights respecting policy and practice. We use our knowledge of the law, and experience as practising lawyers for children and young people, to ask decision makers and lawmakers to change the law and the way the law is used to make sure that children and young people's rights are respected, protected and fulfilled.    

Our values are the principles we uphold in all our work, no matter what. They are the foundation of our workplace culture. Everyone who works at Clan shows our values in all they do and say.    

If you’re thinking of applying but would like to have a chat first, please contact Lisa, our Young Person’s Coordinator, at hr@clanchildlaw.org

To apply, complete an application form listed in the 'Attached Documents' section below and upload it where prompted in place of a CV. No cover letter is required.

Clan Childlaw is an equal opportunity employer and welcomes applications from all qualified individuals regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, disability, or any other protected status. 

Notes

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Attached documents

TitleFileApplication Form Guidance