Welcome to St James Legal Advice Centre!

Who are we?

We are a charity providing free legal advice to those who cannot afford access to justice, empowering clients to understand their legal rights. We are made up of a dedicated team of volunteer solicitors, barristers, trainees and students.  

We operate across three different locations on different days of the week:

• Tuesdays at the Wilton Community Church in Muswell Hill

• Wednesday at the Salvation Army in Wood Green

• Saturdays at St James’ Church in Muswell Hill

All clinics have wheelchair access.

Who can we help?

Our services are means-tested. Generally, we can only provide advice to people who:

• Do not have a household income above £40,000 and

• Do not have accessible liquid assets (e.g. cash savings in a bank account) above £20,000

There are exceptions for people with dependents or who are unable to access legal advice due to particular vulnerabilities.

Please ensure you have a read of our client care statement and privacy notice on our documents’ page before coming to see us.

What can we help with?

Our main areas of legal advice include employment, welfare benefits, housing matters, neighbour disputes and consumer contracts.

All clinics aim to provide some general advice concerning your legal matter. Our Tuesday and Wednesday clinics may be able to draft letters and emails on your behalf, help you organise files, and provide guidance in filling out forms.

All clinics are unable to advise in criminal proceedings and debt or consumer credit matters. We are also unable to do advocacy in court, provide representation, and undertake certain work reserved for the legal profession. 

Specialist Family Law and Employment Law clinics

We also run occasional specialist clinics in employment and family law, as well as an immigration support clinic as follows:.

• Family law clinic at our Wood Green clinic (see below for details) generally on the last Wednesday of the month. Upcoming clinics will be held on: 25th September, 6th November and 27th November 2024. 

• Employment law clinic at our Wilton clinic (see below for details). Upcoming clinics will be on: 24th September, 8th October, 22nd October, 19th November and 17th December 2024

• Immigration Support clinic will operate at the Wood Green clinic on the following dates: 2nd October, 6th November and 4th December 2024

PLEASE NOTE THE FOLLOWING:

We can provide you with general information on immigration law and help you to understand forms and documents. We are not able to take on your case, complete any forms for you or give you any form of personalised immigration advice, but we can recommend suitable organisations to help you if necessary.

How we operate

We provide drop-in services across our three clinics. Appointments cannot be made, and we do not respond to emails requesting advice.  We operate on a first-come, first-served basis. You are more likely to be seen if you arrive early! We close our doors to clients 30 minutes before the clinic closing time.

We strive to accommodate everyone who arrives on time. However, if the clinic is too busy, you may be asked to return the next week or visit one of our other locations.

Each advice session is typically limited to 15 minutes, and we can address only one legal issue per visit. If you have multiple issues, you may need to visit more than once; for instance, returning the following week to discuss additional matters.