This is a free service and for civil appeals only (it does not cover family cases).
The scheme is to provide free guidance and basic advice for those without legal representation who wish to appeal a county court decision or are a respondent to an appeal. The scheme covers decisions made in a court in Bristol, Gloucester, Weston Super Mare, Taunton, Yeovil or Bath.
Appointments will take place once a fortnight, so please bear this in mind if there is an urgent deadline or hearing.
We will offer you a half hour telephone appointment with a qualified barrister or solicitor, legal executive, trainee solicitor or paralegal. All these people are offering their time for free. Phone calls to you will be made between 9am – 5pm on a given day.
We will take your details and check prior to the appointment, that there is no conflict of interest with the person advising you to make sure that they are not representing the other side.
We will send you an outcome form which will give brief details of the appeal and the basic advice/guidance provided.
You can make an appointment by phoning the Law Centre on 0117 924 8662 (Monday – Friday 10am -4.30 pm).
Before making the call, please have the following information to hand (we cannot process the appointment without this information)
We would also advise you to have lodged a notice of appeal with the Court. This is not essential, but an appointment may be of more use to you after this has been lodged. We can only offer one appointment for each individual case.
What we cannot do
The Law Centre cannot offer you any advice on the issue; we are simply making an appointment for you to talk to someone who is legally qualified to do so. The volunteer legal advisor cannot offer you anything more than the half an hour appointment, if you require further representation on the case, it is likely you will have to pay. We do not offer representation at hearings, but the volunteer lawyer may be able to refer you to other sources of support.
Any personal data submitted to the Law Centre through this contact form or by email or phone will be confidentially and securely stored for 18 months in accordance with our data retention policy. It will be held by the Law Centre as Data Controller and will only be used for the purposes of considering and where appropriate, responding to your enquiry (and any associated purposes). It will not be disclosed to any third parties and will be securely deleted after 18 months. You have a right to be told what data we hold about you (though you are likely to have provided us with that data) and to have it corrected if it is wrong and can read our full privacy policy here.
If we’re unable to help you, use the search buttons below to find someone who can. For example, we’re unable to advise on criminal issues, actions against the police, civil litigation, personal injury, wills/probate.
