1. LawWorks Clinic Round Table
Law School Clinics and Measuring Health Impacts:
Experiences from the UCL Centre for Access to Justice

2. What are we trying to do:
Student legal clinic based in a Health Centre in Newham
Offers advice, casework, and representation in primarily housing and benefits
Model is currently flexible: Open on drop-in, appointment, or referral (from GP) basis
Longer term research project looking at the impact of advice on health.

3. Challenges and Considerations
Research vs Service Evaluation
Why is this question important?
What are the implications?
Ethics
Patient Wellbeing

4. Is it research?
Are you asking questions you wouldn’t normally ask in providing a service?
Are you trying to establish generalisable findings?
Do you want to publish this information in peer reviewed journals or as a REF submission?
If the answer is yes: then this is research and will require ethics approval

5. Ethics
UNIVERSITIES wishing to conduct research will need to go through their individual ethics committees.
Generally you will need to submit copies of your consent forms, detailed research protocols, and a research participation information sheet
Students should be trained on taking informed consent

6. What can you get out of a service evaluation:
Anything you can pull out of your case files and information gathered as part of your normal service provision:
Legal Needs
Client demographics
Types of health issues, prevalence of health issues

7. Examples of Service Evaluation Data:
Table 11
Employment in those with health related legal problems
Frequency
Ratio
Unable to work 9
47%
Unemployed and looking for work 3
16%
Full time 2
11%
Part time
Looking after family at home 1 5%
Unknown
Total 19
Health Problem Reported
Count
Anxiety 11
28%
Chronic Pain (back, pelvis, arthritis, headaches, fibromyalgia) 8
21%
Depression 7
18%
Neurological 3 8%
Stroke 2 5%
Cardiovascular 1 3%
Respiratory GI
Cancer
Diabetes
OCD
Personality Disorder
Disabled
Schizophrenia 0%
Bipolar
Total 39
Table 10
Health related legal problem
Frequency
Ratio
Physical & Mental Health 8
25%
Mental Health 7
22%
Physical Health 3 9%
Not related to health 14
44%

8. If you want to incorporate health into your clinic:
Be clear on if you are doing research or service evaluation. What are you trying to achieve?
If in doubt, contact your University’s Ethics Committee
Have a policies in place and ensure students are briefed well.