Deadline: 1-Mar-21
Applications are now open for the Legal Education Foundation’s Grant Program.The Legal Education Foundation is an independent grantmaking foundation distributing around £6million a year to organisations undertaking charitable work which promotes the strategic objectives.
Funding Programmes
- Stronger Sector: This grant programme supports education, training, and development aimed at addressing systemic gaps in skills in the social justice legal sector and strengthening the capacity of individuals and organisations in the social justice field to deliver their important work effectively and sustainably. Under this programme, they can fund a range of activities which would support this goal including:
- Development and delivery of legal education and training programmes to address systemic gaps in knowledge and practice among advice workers, paralegals, lawyers, and managers.
- Sharing learning and knowledge between practitioners and organisations to improve practice and to increase access to justice.
- Policy work to influence the local or national statutory and regulatory framework for legal education.
- Piloting and evaluating new approaches to delivering legal education, including, for example, flexible working, apprenticeships, remote supervision.
- Fairer Systems: This grants programme supports work to increase people’s capacity to understand the way laws are made and implemented. It has two linked areas of focus: the constitutional and legal implications of leaving the EU; and the growing use of automated decision-making by the government. Fairer Systems programme focuses on two linked issues:
- Constitutional, administrative, and public law implications of the UK’s revised constitutional settlement following Brexit and emergency provisions in place to respond to Covid-19. They are particularly interested in work to increase the understanding of these changes to help ensure transparency, accountability, and the protection of rights.
- Automated decision-making by the government – ensuring that government digital systems, processes, and its use of data are clear, fair, and protect people’s legal rights. They are particularly interested in the use of technology in relation to welfare benefits and immigration processes.
Eligibility Criteria
- Applications to the main grants programmes are only accepted from legally constituted organisations undertaking charitable work in the UK. While the majority of grant recipients will be charities, they can also fund limited companies (including CICs) and private law firms for activities that advance TLEF’s charitable objects and are not profit-making.
- Applications can include all costs related to achieving the hoped-for outcomes, including staffing, volunteer expenses, consultancy, travel, venue hire and a reasonable contribution to overheads. They mostly fund revenue costs but can cover modest capital expenditure directly related to the work, such as a computer for a new staff member.
Exclusions
The Foundation will not fund:
- Work that does not advance TLEF’s charitable objects;
- Work that falls outside the Charity Commission guidance on campaigning and political activity;
- Work that does not advance TLEF’s strategic objectives;
- Work that has already taken place;
- Work that does not have a direct benefit in the UK;
- The provision of legal advice where it is not delivered as part of legal training;
- Projects related to commercial law;
- Awards, prizes or one-off events that are not part of a broader programme the Foundation is supporting;
- Projects where a TLEF grant would directly replace or subsidise government, legal profession or university funding, including the costs of law clinics;
- Infrastructure for pro bono legal advice;
- Capital expenditure on buildings and vehicles;
- General fundraising appeals.
For more information, visit https://www.thelegaleducationfoundation.org/how-to-apply-for-a-grant/grant-timetable