The Legal Aid Lawyer of the Year awards (the ‘LALYs’) organised by the Legal Aid Practitioners Group awards took place on the evening of 7th July 2020. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, this year’s awards took place remotely via YouTube. It was wonderful and rather awe inspiring to hear about the incredible work of so many committed legal aid practitioners working around the UK. CLP would like to congratulate all nominees and winners in the various categories.

This year CLP’s Traveller’s Advice Team (‘TAT’) were nominated in the ‘Team of the Year’ award after an impressive year including success in a landmark Court of Appeal case concerning wide injunctions sought by a local authority in London. Full details of the case can be found on our website here:  https://www.communitylawpartnership.co.uk/news/the-enshrined-right-to-travel-the-bromley-case. The TAT team came away as runners up in the LALYs against a very strong field of fellow nominees.

We are however pleased to report that barrister James Stark of Garden Court North Chambers won in the category of ‘Legal Aid Barrister’ of the year.  James is regularly instructed by CLP and was instructed by us in the case of Terryann Samuels. The case resulted in a ground breaking decision in the Supreme Court and an improved the safety net for homeless households. Full details of the case can be found here https://www.communitylawpartnership.co.uk/news/victory-for-terryann-samuels-in-the-supreme-court.

Just as this year’s ceremony was drawing to a close, we learned that our Mike McIlvaney, who was the instructed solicitor in Terryann’s case, had been selected this year for an ‘Outstanding Achievement’ award. This was a secret that Mike and two other members of our team had known about for a week and was a complete surprise. We offer our warmest congratulations to Mike on his award. To see what others, including Terryann, said about him and Mike’s speech accepting the award, please click the You Tube link:- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIuqzBlh-z0&t=1h08m36s