Our public legal education work

Our public legal education (PLE) strategy aims to improve public understanding of the importance of the rule of law, access to justice and constitutional rights.

We aim to:

  • help the public understand how and when they should take legal advice from a qualified regulated solicitor
  • inform the public about where legal aid still exists and when they can use it
  • improve the public’s perception of solicitors and the justice system through increasing their understanding of the law

Information for the public

We publish advice in the ‘for the public’ pages of our website. Our information for the public covers:

We provide advice on issues where members of the public may need legal help, such as information for people affected by the Grenfell Tower fire.

Find a Solicitor

We direct the public to our Find a Solicitor website, a free online search tool that they can use to find a solicitor in their area.

There are over 600,000 visits to the Find a Solicitor website each month, generating 49,000 enquiries to firms, and nearly 7,000 consumer calls to our helpline.

Campaigning for access to justice

We campaign to improve access to justice for all, regardless of social background or wealth. We raise awareness of the impact of legal aid cuts and court closures.

View our current campaigns:

Let's talk differently about justice and the law

How we talk about law and justice in England and Wales matters. To protect our justice system and the rule of law, we’re exploring new ways of using language and ideas to build public support and political will for change.

Find out how we're reframing justice

Supporting our members’ PLE work

We provide guidance for law firms on developing a PLE programme, including case studies and details of organisations you can work with.

Read our guidance   

Young Citizens

We support Young Citizens, a public legal education charity that works in primary and secondary schools to educate and inspire young people.

Its Legal Experts in Schools programme connects law firms and in-house legal teams with local schools that want to educate their students about the law. Legal professionals work with small groups of students over six weeks to increase their knowledge and skills.

Its mock trials are learning experiences that show secondary school students how the judicial system works.

Young Citizens also runs the Big Legal Lesson, which provides teachers with the tools they need to confidently introduce the law into their classrooms. It's the largest public legal education campaign of its kind, reaching over 150,000 young people since 2020.

Find out more about Young Citizens and get involved

Read Young Citizen's blog on bringing the courtroom to the classroom

Solicitor General’s PLE Panel

We’re a member of the Solicitor General’s PLE Panel. The panel was set up in 2017 to promote the importance of teaching people about the law and their basic civil and criminal rights.

It meets twice a year and is formed of organisations that are involved in PLE, including the Law Society, the Solicitors Regulation Authority, the Bar Council, CILEx, charities and the Ministry of Justice.

In October 2018 it published its 10-year vision statement for PLE.

Maximise your Law Society membership with My LS