The Good Law Project unveiled the plans on Tuesday, following a number of high-profile cases across the UK.
A pioneering legal campaign group which has taken forward several high-profile cases against the government has announced it is setting up its own independent law firm.
The not-for-profit Good Law Project on Tuesday launched a new independent law firm Good Law Practice, which will help to run litigation brought by the project and its partners.
The new firm will be headed up by Jamie Potter, currently the joint head of Bindmans’ Public Law and Human Rights team, and will work alongside Good Law Project’s paid and pro-bono panel of solicitors.
It will build specialist advisory capacity to help communities build the ownership models – housing, businesses, land – that work for them, as well as training those who believe the law exists to serve society rather than the wealthy.
The firm will be funded by Good Law Project and will make its services available to Good Law Project, and its partners, on terms they can afford.
It will start with four qualified lawyers, plus a number of paralegals and support staff and is expected to double in size by the end of the year, with any profits it makes returned to the Good Law Project.
Jo Maugham, director of Good Law Project said: “We are delighted to have a lawyer of Jamie Potter’s calibre leading the firm. We want to foster legal structures that help people respond to the world around them.
“The engagement that follows is, we believe, how we make a better world and fulfil the desire we all share to leave a better world than we found. Delivering on this is my mission.
“The practice will help us become even more responsive to the needs of the communities that we serve, in a world, and a political system that is growing ever more dynamic. And to train lawyers that share our mission.”
The firm will also be recruiting for board members and encouraged applications from groups that are often underrepresented in the law, such as disabled individuals and those from a Black or other minoritised ethnic backgrounds.
The firm plans to open for business from June 2022.
Jamie Potter, incoming managing director of the new firm, said: “This is an exciting opportunity to build a law firm that can support and facilitate the exceptional work being done by Good Law Project to scrutinise public decision-making through the law, and to empower under-represented groups to participate in a legal system that can often feel impenetrable to the uninitiated.
“We want Good Law Practice to be a training ground for the public law and social welfare lawyers of the future. Such expertise is invaluable as trust in our political system is eroded, wealth is distributed increasingly unequally and legal aid is constantly narrowed.”
