If you want to ensure there’s more widely available access to your legal expertise, how best to make sure it reaches those in need? Not by just sitting in a city centre office waiting for people to navigate a maze of names and find their way to you.

This is why I launched our ‘on the road’ family law service #LawtoDoor – a name which reflects a long-held belief that the law should be visible and those who practise it should be accessible.

Currently, we operate monthly #LawtoDoor days in Cumbria and London.

In our hometown of Manchester we’re as happy meeting those we can help in their homes or places of work as at our offices.

It’s about making it as easy as possible for people to get the qualified legal help they need.

We are often the first professional service to be consulted and that is not a responsibility to be taken lightly. Some people are nervous about seeing a solicitor; by the time they sit down to talk to us it’s most likely their marriage or relationship is nearing an end, if not yet over. Acknowledging this and starting that conversation is undoubtedly hard.

Seeing clients in a less threatening, less invasive environment hopefully helps them and it’s important as there’s a lot of information that needs to be exchanged. From there it’s up to us to explain how it will be and what to expect. Maybe it’s the northerner in me, but I’m inclined to tell it like it is. It’s important that our clients are told what they need to know, not what they want to hear.

Often at the outset clients can also fear that months later they will be left with little money or without an arrangement that allows for quality time spent with their children. Contrary to this our aim is to ensure they achieve the best outcome in all the circumstances and can look forward rather than live in the past.

Legal aid is now only available in a small number of cases but there are many family lawyers with a genuine desire to help.

Here at Merrick we now have three levels of service offering. We call them Prestige, Benchmark and #AccessUs – more information about them can be found here.

We are proud that #AccessUs allows us to act for those who may not otherwise be able to afford the best available legal advice.

With #LawtoDoor we are redefining boundaries that otherwise limit accessibility to our services.

Both are #lawforgood, another of our initiatives which we will talk about in a future post when we consider the importance of rebuilding trust in our legal system.

As someone commented on Facebook in response to our latest #LawtoDoor event:

‘To make access to the law is a vital basic human right. Thank you for this innovation. So much of our legal rights are now eroded we have to use the legal system because it is the backbone of history. It is slowly being tampered with to make access impossible. This is a very good move.’

To find out more or make an appointment telephone 0161 838 5410 #itsgoodtotalk #familylaw

Future dates for London and Cumbria can be found here.

Amanda J Merrick
MERRICK

22/02/18