The Bar’s charity plans to overhaul its services as requests for help grow across employment, family and housing law.
Rising demand for free legal assistance is stretching the systems used by the Bar’s national pro bono charity, Advocate, which has announced plans to improve how it handles applications and matches people needing help with volunteer barristers.
Applications for employment-law assistance have risen by 48% since 2021, while housing applications have increased by 21% and family-law applications by 22%, according to The Next Chapter: Our Three-Year Strategy 2026–2029, published by Advocate today (6 October). The charity attributes the pressure to restrictions on legal aid, the cost-of-living crisis and delays across courts and tribunals following the pandemic.
The strategy coincides with Advocate’s 30th anniversary and the appointment of Christopher Stacey as chief executive. But beneath the birthday celebrations lies a candid account of an organisation that has outpaced its established ways of working. “Moving quickly has meant layering new ways of working onto old structures and stretching systems that were never designed for today’s demand,” the report admits.
Founded in 1996 with a part-time administrator and 350 volunteer barristers, Advocate now has a panel of more than 5,000. It provides free advice and representation through volunteers across every area of law in England and Wales.
Although much of the Bar is concentrated in the...
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