Lawyer Agreement
Free Legal Answers is a website operated by LawWorks (the Solicitors Pro Bono Group) designed to enable access to pro bono legal advice and information (on civil law matters in England and Wales) for people on low incomes. There is no fee for the use of the website or for the advice and information provided by the participating lawyers.
Who Can Use LawWorks Free Legal Answers
To be eligible, members of the public wanting to ask a legal question must:
- Be on a low to modest income. This is based on minimum income standards which vary by the size and type of household;
- Be in a civil law area covered by Free Legal Answers;
- Not already have a lawyer helping with their legal problem;
- Be over 16 years old; and,
- Live in England or Wales.
Users are asked to register on the website and establish their eligibility.
The information that users provide to establish eligibility to use the website is confidential and will not be shown to participating volunteer lawyers, except in so far as is necessary for the purpose of providing the legal advice sought. Generally, the participating lawyers will only see information associated with the user’s legal issue.
What Happens When People Use LawWorks Free Legal Answers
After an account has been created, users will be able to post requests for legal advice/information. Users should provide the information that will help a lawyer to answer the question/provide advice. Users are able to upload documents relevant to their question, remove and add new documents, as well as edit their question. A lawyer may ask for additional information before responding fully to the user. The user will have a choice to respond to that request or not.
Participating lawyers will be able to review the legal questions being asked, before choosing which questions (if any) to answer. If there has been no response from a lawyer within 20 days of posting a request, it will be removed and the user notified. If a lawyer responds to a user's question, the user will see the written response by logging back onto the website.
Users will not know the name of the lawyer who answers their question(s) unless the lawyer chooses to provide it. Generally, we suggest that lawyers refrain from providing their personal details. Lawyers who do provide their details should be aware of the possibility of users contacting them directly. Upon receipt of any direct communication from a user outside the FLA platform, lawyers should immediately inform the site administrator and insist upon users reverting to communicating via the FLA platform, subject only to LawWorks’ site administrator granting permission to communicate outside the FLA platform. [Advice provided outside the FLA platform might not be covered by LawWorks’ policy of insurance.]
While participating lawyers can respond to questions anonymously (and usually do so), the name and details of participating lawyers will be provided by LawWorks to users should a complaint be intimated or made to LawWorks or the Solicitors Regulation Authority or the Legal Ombudsman (the SRA has indicated its approval of this approach). This approach is consistent with the SRA Code of Conduct for Solicitors, RELs and RFLs and is consented to by agreeing to this Lawyer Agreement.
The lawyer will not take any action to help the user except to respond to the request for advice and information that is posted on the website (see below if a lawyer wishes to take a case further as a pro bono matter).
As a lawyer, how can I get involved?
We very much welcome all practising solicitors in England and Wales to participate.
You first need to register on the website. Please use a firm or organisation email when you register. We ask that you provide your Solicitors Regulatory Authority (SRA) number, so the site administrator can verify your credentials with the appropriate regulatory authority.
Participating solicitors can select how often they wish to receive notifications (which will be sent via email) about questions/requests posted on the FLA website (the selection can be changed at any time).
It is a condition of this Lawyer Agreement and against the terms of its use and participation in Free Legal Answers to seek to identify, or to in anyway facilitate, potential paid work or paying clients.
It is a condition of this Lawyer Agreement that cases should be dealt with within the FLA platform, subject to prior permission of the site administrator. No case should be taken on outside of the website, on a pro bono basis or otherwise, without first contacting the Free Legal Answers administrator (see below).
LawWorks has an unfettered discretion as to whether to grant or withdraw authorisation. For example, LawWorks reserves the right to withdraw authorisation at any time should there be any issue or concern regarding participation, or for any breach of this Lawyer Agreement.
3rd party assistance
In accordance with normal legal practice, when selecting and/or answering questions posed on the Free Legal Answers platform participating lawyers are permitted to engage the assistance of others, including other lawyers, trainees or students, provided that i) any assistants are bound by similar terms (including privacy / confidentiality / IP / Regulatory), mutatis mutandis, contained in this Lawyer Agreement (responsibility for which, including any documentation / training, shall be the registered lawyer’s); ii) a registered lawyer has conduct of each matter at all times, such that any and all assistance is at the direction and under the supervision of the registered lawyer with such conduct; iii) no advice is provided via Free Legal Answers unless it has been checked by a registered lawyer, so as to ensure its competence, including in a regulatory (SRA) sense, and adopted as their own advice. Consequently, all advice must be posted in the name of a registered lawyer. It is the responsibility of the lawyers registered on the Free Legal Answers platform to ensure compliance with its terms. Any failure to comply with the obligations set out in this Lawyer Agreement by any assistant to a registered lawyer will constitute a breach of this Agreement by the registered lawyer themselves. By agreeing to the terms of this Lawyer Agreement, you agree to provide meaningful information to LawWorks upon LawWorks’ request from time to time and to do so in a timely manner, concerning the use of any assistance, such that LawWorks is able to assess compliance with the terms of this Lawyer Agreement, and any other obligations or standards, including those owed by LawWorks to any third party and/or for the purpose of the smooth or satisfactory running of Free Legal Answers, at LawWorks’ complete discretion.
Professional Indemnity Insurance
Advice and information provided by lawyers through the Free Legal Answers website is insured by professional indemnity insurance held by LawWorks. The insurance is limited to liability for claims that are made in relation to the legal advice provided through Free Legal Answers.
If you are made aware of any expression of dissatisfaction or complaint or notice of a claim from an FLA client, either directly (i.e., outside the FLA platform) or via the FLA platform, you must immediately (and, in any event, no later than ten (10) days after the complaint/claim is first intimated) provide LawWorks’ administrator with the details, including: the date received, the complainant’s/claimant’s name and address (if known), the dates of the communications on LawWorks’ Free Legal Answers, and the grounds for the complaint/claim.
The Pro Bono Protocol and legal aid
We ask all lawyers participating in Free Legal Answers to apply the Pro Bono Protocol. The Protocol was developed to promote and support consistently high standards of pro bono work (building upon the professional codes of conduct that all lawyers must achieve and observe).
Endorsed by the Law Society of England and Wales, Bar Council of England and Wales and the Chartered Institute of Legal Executives, it is available on LawWorks’ website here.
We also ask all lawyers participating in Free Legal Answers to have some familiarity (but not in-depth knowledge) about potential eligibility for legal aid. LawWorks believes it important to try and signpost people to legal aid if this may be applicable. There are introductory resources about legal aid here.
Key sections in the Pro Bono Protocol we would like to emphasise for Free Legal Answers include:
- Pro bono work ‘should only be undertaken by a lawyer who is adequately trained, has appropriate knowledge, skills and experience and, where necessary, is adequately supervised for the work in question’;
- The lawyer undertaking a piece of pro bono work (and where appropriate their supervisor) ‘should have no less than the minimum level of legal expertise and experience as would be required if the particular work in question was paid work’;
- Once a lawyer has agreed to undertake a piece of pro bono work ‘the lawyer…must give that work the same priority, attention and care as would apply to paid work.’
Lawyer/Client Relationship
Advice provided by volunteer lawyers via the Free Legal Answers Project will be provided by lawyers acting as volunteers for LawWorks and not in their capacity as employees, consultants or in any other capacity in connection with a law firm or other business or entity, including an un-regulated business or entity (3rd Party).
Any client-lawyer relationship that is established will be between participating lawyers in their capacity as volunteers of LawWorks and the client, subject to any rule or regulation to the contrary. That relationship, however, will be limited in scope and duration as described in this agreement.
Representation will be limited to providing an answer through the FLA website and will not involve any continuing representation of the client beyond the act of providing such an answer. Lawyers shall provide one-off legal advice services to a client without expectation by either the lawyer or the client of an ongoing relationship or representation in the matter or question. Such one-off advice may include more than one response from a participating solicitor concerning a question or matter, for example following receipt of further information form the client about it.
Should the client have a concern about the lawyer's assistance, he/she will be permitted to contact the site administrator.
By accepting the terms of this Lawyer Agreement, you consent to the nature, scope and duration of the lawyer/client relationship.
Conflicts
The client's name and the opposing party will be provided to the lawyer so that the lawyer can ensure that he/she does not answer a question if there is a concern that he/she and/or their employer might be at risk of or have an actual conflict of interest.
Privacy Policy/Confidentiality Statement
LawWorks’ Free Legal Answers is designed to ensure user privacy. Information available to LawWorks and the lawyer responding to a user request shall remain confidential, subject to the limitations of this Privacy/Confidentiality Policy and unless the lawyer must reveal the information to prevent bodily harm, to prevent the client from committing a crime or to establish a defence in a controversy with the client. However, client requests for advice and information and the response[s] of participating lawyers may be stored and maintained in a database for review in order to measure the effectiveness of the project. Steps will be taken to maintain the security of this database and it will only be used by LawWorks, but an absolute guarantee of security is not possible when using the internet and internet-based systems. Data collected on this website may be automatically destroyed after three years.
By agreeing to this Lawyer Agreement, participating lawyers consent to details of any breach and any action taken by LawWorks in connection with any breach by participating lawyers (the “Details”) being provided to users at LawWorks’ discretion, for example in connection with a complaint by a user concerning a participating lawyer. By agreeing to this Lawyer Agreement, any confidentiality which would otherwise be owed to participating lawyers in the Details is waived. Any confidentiality owed to LawWorks and/or users is unaffected by this Lawyer Agreement.
For each visitor to the site the web server automatically recognises only the consumer domain name. This is the information that is collected for statistical purposes.
Aggregate information is collected on what pages are accessed or visited by consumers.
The information collected is used to improve the content of the Web page and is not shared with other organisations for commercial purposes. Information may be disclosed when legally required at the request of government authorities conducting an investigation, to verify or enforce compliance with the policies governing our website and applicable laws or to protect against misuses or unauthorised use of our website.
With respect to cookies: Two non-personal temporary cookies are sent. These are eliminated when you log out of the site.
With respect to Ad Servers: There is no partnership or special relationship with any ad server company.
Taking on Pro Bono cases outside the Free Legal Answers website
If a lawyer wishes to communicate with a client outside of the LawWorks’ Free Legal Answers website for the purpose of taking on the case on a pro bono basis, they must first contact the website administrator. Professional indemnity insurance for advice and information given beyond the scope of the FLA service will not be covered. LawWorks is not liable for any legal advice services or information provided outside of the Free Legal Answers website.
IP and Regulatory
The legal services that you provide through Free Legal Answers are provided on LawWorks’ behalf. LawWorks is the entity through which your legal services will be provided to the public. For regulatory purposes, you will be a LawWorks’ volunteer. LawWorks is an unregulated charity. (For in-house solicitors, in particular, this means that you should bear in mind the need to separate your in-house job from your volunteering when taking on certain property matters or other reserved activities (see LawWorks’ guidance).
The user’s FLA account, including any data (however stored, including electronically), documents, questions posed and answers given via the FLA platform (and any related material generated outside the FLA platform, including but not limited to data, documents and questions and answers posed, communicated or provided by users and participating lawyers (in any format) in connection with FLA, in circumstances where prior permission to communicate outside the FLA platform has not been given by LawWorks’ administrator), is the property of LawWorks.
LawWorks reserves the right to require any lawyers participating in FLA to return, destroy or otherwise manage LawWorks’ property in any way it deems fit (including requiring written confirmation as to its destruction and the method by which that destruction has been effected), subject to any enactment, rule or regulation preventing LawWorks or participating lawyers from so acting.
The communications, advice and material including any data, documents and questions and answers generated between users and participating lawyers constitute the client’s (i.e., the user’s) file for regulatory purposes (SRA / Bar Council). Participating lawyers (and by extension, LawWorks) will act accordingly, including but not limited to maintaining its confidentiality and its retention (in so far as is required by law). Participating lawyers are not permitted to maintain, store or hold onto the client’s file (or any part of it), and should return it or any part of it (or manage it otherwise as directed by LawWorks) upon the conclusion of the matter, i.e. having answered the user’s question, in circumstances where participating lawyers hold the client’s file (or any part of it) outside the FLA platform, subject to the section above, headed “Taking on Pro Bono cases outside the Free Legal Answers website”.
Amendments
This Lawyer Agreement is subject to amendment or modification at any time. Any such amendment or modification will be accompanied by written notification to all registered lawyers of this site. Upon such notification, all earlier versions of this Lawyer Agreement will no longer apply. Upon such notification, the updated version of this Lawyer Agreement will apply with immediate effect.
Agreement
By clicking the "I Agree" button you agree:
- I have read this Lawyer Agreement and I understand and agree to its terms.
- The information that I will provide is true and correct.
- If I do not agree to this Lawyer Agreement (or any part of it), I acknowledge that I will not be able to use the Free Legal Answers website/platform.
