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Family law advice to be available through Community Legal Advice help line

40 new jobs created at four family law firms as a result of Community Legal Advice expansion

Four regional family law firms are set to take on new staff following the announcement that the LSC's Community Legal Advice Helpline is to now handle family law calls.

The helpline, which already covers debt, welfare benefits, tax credits, housing, education and employment problems, will handle family calls from August this year. Those calls will be handled by Sheffield based firm Howells, the Yorkshire firm Switalskis, Allan Rutherford Ltd from Norwich and the well know Cardiff firm, Morgans. Each firm will be taking on respectively 15, 10 and 7 & 7 new members of staff as a result of the additional work.

The announcement followed a "successful" pilot scheme which claims that

* There was a string demand for family law advice with over 3,000 calls a month received

* 82% of users said the advice they received enabled them to resolve their problem.

* There was a wide geographical and diverse client base: 11% of family helpline callers described themselves as having a disability and 20% were from Black or Minority Ethnic backgrounds.



More on the helpline itself and the background to the initiative can be found on the LSC website.

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