Legal Education Foundation

Legal Education Foundation
Formation 1962 (1962)
Founded at Guildford, UK
Registration no. 271297
Legal status Registered charity
Purpose Advancement of legal education
Headquarters River House, Broadford Park, Guildford, UK GU4 8EP
Region
UK
Chief Executive
 Matthew Smerdon
Chairman of Governors
 Guy Beringer, QC
Website thelegaleducationfoundation.org
Formerly called
 The College of Law

The Legal Education Foundation is a charity dedicated to the advancement and support of legal education in the United Kingdom. It was founded in 1962 as The College of Law and constituted in its present form in 2012.

History

The charity began in 1962 when the Law Society's own law college (founded in 1903) merged with the tutorial firm Gibson and Weldon (founded in 1876) to form the College of Law with branches in London and Guildford.[1] The College of Law was a private teaching institution which operated as a charity. It was incorporated by Royal Charter in 1975 and officially registered as a charity in 1976 "to promote the advancement of legal education and the study of law in all its branches".[2] It never received Higher Education Funding Council funds and was dependent solely on its own resources to operate the college and finance its growth. In 2006 the college was granted degree-awarding powers and began a collaboration with the Sutton Trust to fund the trust's Pathways to Law program which encourages and supports disadvantaged secondary school students who wish to study law.[3] Until 2012, the College of Law was in the top 100 of UK charities ranked by expenditure.[4]

In 2012, the College Of Law underwent a major restructuring which split off the educational institution from its parent charity. College of Law Ltd. was created as a limited company to take on its educational and training business on a for-profit basis. The parent charity changed its name to the Legal Education Foundation and remained under the Royal Charter. In November of that year the college was granted university status. Shortly thereafter it was sold to Montagu Private Equity for £200 million. The proceeds of the sale went to the Legal Education Foundation, while the £177 million debt incurred by Montagu for the purchase was transferred to the college itself. The college subsequently changed its name to the University of Law.[5][6]

Activities

The newly constituted Legal Education Foundation officially launched on 10 July 2013 with the announcement of its first six grants and the appointment of Matthew Smerdon as its first CEO. Smerdon was recruited from the Baring Foundation, where he specialised in funding the legal advice sector.[7] The charity had begun investing its £200 million endowment in April 2013 with its investment managers instructed to preserve the value of the fund in real terms and produce an annual income of 3.5%. By the beginning of 2015 it had distributed approximately £5m in grants to nearly 70 projects which were designed to increase accessibility to legal services or to increase public understanding of the law. The foundation also initiated and runs the Justice First fellowship program which funds trainee solicitors who wish to work in the social welfare sector. In 2014 it awarded Justice First fellowships to eight law graduates recruited from a field of 161 applicants. In 2016, the program was expanded to include two further fellowships for trainee barristers.[8][9] The charity has continued and expanded its collaboration with the Sutton Trust in the Pathways to Law program and also collaborates with the Baring Foundation in widening public access to legal advice.[10][11] In addition to the income from its own endowment, the Legal Education Foundation also receives grants for its projects from general funding organizations such as Comic Relief and the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation.[8]

References

  1. ↑ Abel, (1998). The Making of the English Legal Profession 1800–1988, pp. 145–146. Beard Books (reprint of the 1988 edition). ISBN 1587982501
  2. ↑ Charity Commission for England and Wales. Legal Education Foundation, Charity No. 271297. Retrieved 16 June 2016.
  3. ↑ Partington, Martin (2016). Introduction to the English Legal System 2016-17. p. 269. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0198758804
  4. ↑ "The Top 500 Charities". Charities Direct. Archived from the original on 19 November 2010. Retrieved 2 June 2016.
  5. ↑ Wright, S. (2015). "The Imaginators of English University Reform", p. 142 in Sheila Slaughter and Barrett Jay Taylor (eds.) Higher Education, Stratification, and Workforce Development. Springer. ISBN 3319215124
  6. ↑ Rogerson, Paul (2 June 2015). "Going Dutch". Law Society Gazette
  7. ↑ Holt, Andrew (25 July 2013). "New Legal Education Foundation appoints CEO". Charity Times. Retrieved 16 June 2016.
  8. 1 2 Rozenberg, Joshua (16 February 2015). "Access to learning fund". Law Society Gazette. Retrieved 16 June 2016.
  9. ↑ Legal Education Foundation (19 April 2016). Fellowship scheme extended to the Bar. Retrieved 16 June 2016.
  10. ↑ Henshaw, Pete (18 May 2016). "Law education scheme targets 1,800 disadvantaged students". SecEd. Retrieved 16 June 2016.
  11. ↑ Baksi, Catherine (1 September 2014). "Law centres: Picking up the pieces". Law Society Gazette. Retrieved 16 June 2016.
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