page icon

Join Us

Legal Protection Volunteer

Hours
1-2 days per week
Responsible to
Legal Protection Coordinator
Ideal time commitment
6 months minimum
Team
Legal Protection
Location
HBF Office, near Old Street, London
Closing date
Benefits
Travel and lunch expenses covered

The Legal Protection Team deal with client referrals, the provision of medico-legal reports, legal casework, and supporting clients to obtain high quality legal advice in their asylum claims and human trafficking matters. Under the supervision of the Director of Legal (delegated to other team members as appropriate), you will be assisting the team with legal casework tasks (the main ones of which are set out below), with the opportunity also to accompany clients to appeal hearings or asylum interviews. 

 

Image removed.

Key responsibilities  

 

  • Making phone calls to people (solicitors, health professionals, other NGOs) seeking out assistance to obtain further information about cases;  

  • Liaising with legal representatives and other organisations and bodies;  

  • Drafting legal summaries and preparing files for transfer to a new legal representative;  

  • Preparing legal chronologies and other legal casework; 

  • Liaising with clients about legal protection casework queries;  

  • Onward referring to alternative local services and organisations where HBF cannot assist;  

  • Various administrative duties as required, such as taking minutes in meetings with clients and recording interactions in our internal database; 

  • Accompanying vulnerable clients to Home Office interviews and Tribunal hearings as appropriate. 

Image removed.

Skills, knowledge and experience needed 

 

  • Understanding of, and commitment to, the objectives of the Helen Bamber Foundation; 

  • A demonstrable empathy for our vulnerable clients, including asylum seekers, refugees and survivors of torture and trafficking; 

  • Punctual, reliable and self-motivated with a positive, ’can-do’ attitude; 

  • Excellent attention to detail and accuracy; 

  • Excellent communication and interpersonal skills; 

  • Good telephone manner and ability to be sensitive to vulnerable people; 

  • Excellent IT skills including the use of databases, excel, email, word processing; 

  • Awareness of confidentiality/data protection; 

  • Experience of data entry and maintaining databases is desirable; 

  • Basic knowledge of the UK asylum and NRM process is desirable. 

 

Image removed.

What you will get out of your time with us 

 

  • Develop a good understanding of the UK’s asylum system and the system for identifying and ensuring the appropriate support for victims of trafficking, the issues that arise in complex legal cases and the possible avenues for redress; 

  • Gain an insight into the breadth and complexity of needs of those who have experienced extreme trauma and are claiming asylum in the UK;  

  • Be given an introduction to the landscape of statutory and NGO support services available to those individuals, and the difficulties faced in accessing them; 

  • Front-line experience, liaising directly with a wide range of external organisations within the sector including solicitors, mental health professionals and specialist NGOs;  

  • The opportunity to work directly with clients both in the office and on occasion, at the Home Office, Tribunal or external meetings; 

  • The opportunity to work closely with and learn from a team of multidisciplinary experts. 

Equal Opportunities

Our commitment to principles of equity, diversity and inclusion is an integral part of our approach to our clients, our volunteers and our staff, and we are an equal opportunities and Living Wage employer. We are committed to attracting and recruiting diverse candidates because we are keen to make sure that all our staff, trustees, volunteers and ambassadors reflect the communities we serve and the wider community we work in.

We genuinely welcome and encourage applications from a range of backgrounds, especially people of colour, people with disabilities, people from low socio-economic backgrounds, refugees, stateless people and others with lived experience of forced migration or trauma.

Statement on artificial intelligence (AI) and recruitment

At the Helen Bamber Foundation / Asylum Aid we don’t make decisions based on artificial intelligence (AI). We have a human approach to hiring and all applications are reviewed and assessed by our team. Similarly, what we are most interested in hearing about is your individual motivation, experience, skills and values. AI doesn’t know about you or what motivates you – we want to hear from you.

AI may be a helpful tool, but typically leads to generic answers repeated by multiple candidates, not stand out applications. Please make sure that your responses reflect your own thoughts and experiences.

Download full job description here.

​To apply, please add your details and upload your CV and cover letter and CV, and press submit to answer some short questions.

The personal information that you provide to us this application will be stored on our database. We will process the personal information that we collect (apart from equal opportunities data) for the purposes of the charity’s legitimate interests, as follows: (1) to assess your application to work for the charity; (2) to organise interviews, or other recruitment activities; (3) for the purpose of communicating with you about your application; (4) to provide a record of our recruitment process for audit purposes and to respond to queries. We will only retain your personal information in our own database for as long as necessary in order to fulfil the purposes for which we need it, as described above. You have the right to access, correct or delete a copy of the data we hold about you at any time. If you would like to do any of these things, or if you have any concerns, please contact jobs@helenbamber.org.

Application form