User Agreement
Please read the complete User Agreement and click "I Agree" at the end of the text if you wish to continue with your registration.
What you need to know to use LawWorks Free Legal Answers
You can use this website if all of the following apply to you:
• You have a low income or your household/family has a low income.
• Your legal problem is not related to a criminal law issue.
• You do not already have a lawyer to help you with your legal problem.
• You are over 16.
• You live in England or Wales
If the above requirements do not apply, unfortunately you are not eligible to use this website. If this is the case, please click here for a list of other sources of advice or information.
What Free Legal Answers can offer
By using this website, you are asking a lawyer to give you free legal help on specific legal questions. The volunteer lawyers are all practising solicitors authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority.
In order to answer your question, a lawyer might wish to make use of the assistance of others, including non-qualified persons, such as students or trainee solicitors, or non-legal persons (“Non-Qualified Persons”). The assistance that Non-Qualified Persons provide could include accessing the Free Legal Answers website on behalf of a lawyer for the purpose of selecting appropriate questions, as well as providing assistance once a question had been allocated to a lawyer. All Non-Qualified Persons will only act under the instruction and close supervision of the Lawyer responsible for answering your question. No answers will be provided to you before a lawyer has checked them and adopted them as their own answer. Non-Qualified Person will be subject to similar obligations as to confidentiality and the protection of your personal data, as lawyers using this website.
The website provides initial legal advice only and the lawyer responding will not be able to do more than provide the initial legal advice or information for you. The lawyer will answer your questions through the website and will not contact you separately with an answer nor have a telephone call or meeting to answer your questions. If the lawyer leaves your question open for a response from you, you will have 10 days to reply before the question closes. When the lawyer is finished answering your question, the lawyer will no longer be able to provide assistance on the same issue. If you have a court date or you need to file something with a court by a specific date, a lawyer may not be able to answer your question in time. If you have a legal deadline or are facing a court action, we encourage you to continue to seek alternative sources of advice or support.
Unfortunately, not all questions posted to the website site will receive an answer and we cannot guarantee that a volunteer lawyer will choose to answer your legal question. If a lawyer cannot assist you, an administrator will notify you within 20 days of your legal question being asked.
You can use the website to ask 4 different legal questions per year. It is not possible to create a new account to ask more than this number of questions. You must meet the eligibility requirements (as described above) every time you use this website.
About The Lawyers
If a lawyer answers your question, they will be providing their services for free (pro bono). 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/Partners of any law firm. No client/lawyer relationship shall be created between a volunteer lawyer and/or the law firm they work for and you. Any client lawyer relationship that is established will be between LawWorks and you.
Our volunteer lawyers will only write to you about the particular question you have submitted via the website. The lawyer will not help you after that or do anything else for you. Unless the lawyer chooses to tell you their name, their name will only be known to LawWorks. The lawyer will not:
- make calls or file papers for you
- go to meetings for you
- go to court for you.
If you use this website, you agree to the limits of the service as described above.
There is professional indemnity insurance cover in place that provides adequate and appropriate cover in respect of the services that we provide or have provided.
Rules the Lawyers Must Go By
Lawyers cannot knowingly help both sides in a legal issue or a case. For example, a lawyer can help someone who is renting accommodation or the landlord, but they cannot help both sides in a dispute or legal issue. The lawyer or the law firm or office they work for may be helping the other side in your case and the lawyer answering your question may not know it. If it becomes apparent, due to information you share with the lawyer answering your question, that the lawyer or the law firm that they work for is helping the other side of your dispute, that lawyer will not be able to answer your question. If this happens, we will reassign your question to another lawyer
Complaints
We want to give you the best possible service. However, if at any point you become unhappy or concerned about the service we have provided then you should inform us immediately, so that we can do our best to resolve the problem. In the first instance it may be helpful to contact the person who is working on your case to discuss your concerns and we will do our best to resolve any issues at this stage. If you would like to make a formal complaint, then please contact the CEO of LawWorks at freelegalanswers@lawworks.org.uk.
Making a complaint will not affect how we handle your case.
The Legal Ombudsman could also help you if you are not happy with your solicitor's work or service and need to put things right. This could include things like:
- Not replying to your messages on the FLA platform.
- Giving you unclear advice or not explaining issues properly so you do not understand
The Legal Ombudsman can help you if we are unable to resolve your complaint ourselves. They will look at your complaint independently and it will not affect how we handle your case.
Before accepting a complaint for investigation, the Legal Ombudsman will check that you have tried to resolve your complaint with us first. If you have, then you must take your complaint to the Legal Ombudsman:
- No more than one year from the date of the act or omission being complained about; or
- No more than one year from the date when they should have realised that there was cause for complaint; and
- Within six months of receiving a final response to it.
If you would like more information about the Legal Ombudsman, please contact them. Contact details: Visit: www.legalombudsman.org.uk Tel: 0300 555 0333 between 9.00 – 17.00. Email enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk Legal Ombudsman PO Box 6806, Wolverhampton, WV1 9WJ
LawWorks is a trading name of the Solicitors Pro Bono Group, a registered charity (No.1064274). LawWorks is not regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority, however our lawyers are.
The Solicitors Regulation Authority could also help you if you are concerned about our behaviour. This could be for things like dishonesty or treating you unfairly because of your age, a disability or other characteristic. You can raise your concerns with the Solicitors Regulation Authority via their website or by calling 0370 606 2555.
If you are unhappy about the way we manage your personal information you have a right to object to the Information Commissioner, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF (Tel: 0303 123 1113). https://ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint/
Confidentiality
We will do our best to keep what you put on this website confidential. You should know the law could require us to report what you say on this website. For example, if you say you are going to hurt yourself or someone else, or you say that you or someone you know is abusing a child, the law may require us to tell someone. For a limited time, we keep records of:
- What kind of legal problem you had
- What the lawyer told you
- Where you went on our website
- Information to determine eligibility for the service
- All other information you give us
We keep this information to help us improve the website and the service provided. We will not use the information for any other purpose. We won't share it with people involved in a legal dispute with you unless required or permitted by law or you ask us to do so to help resolve a concern about the lawyer helping you. Information may be studied by researchers who work with us to improve access to legal advice.
Any personal information that could identify you will be removed before information is shared for research purposes. All volunteer lawyers for this website can see the questions that you type into the website but will not share them unless required or permitted by law.
In using this website, you agree to these terms of use (including any updated versions of this agreement from time to time).
• You read this, understand and agree to the above rules.
• You agree to be honest and provide accurate and complete information about your legal problem.
• You agree to post only four separate legal questions per year.
• You will not create a new account to ask additional questions.
• You can only use this website if you agree with these requirements.
