By Dr Jane Krishnadas, Conceptor and Convenor of CLOCK, Senior Lecturer School of Law, Keele University. This article first appeared as a Personally Speaking column in the Stoke Sentinel in April 2025.

In 2012, Mike Wolfe, writing for The Sentinel, announced the CLOCK plan launched Just in Time to Challenge Legal Cuts, stating "If you think all lawyers are rich white men without any social conscience then you should have joined me at an event at Keele University last week."

Some 14 years later, I'm sure Mike would have been delighted to see the launch of Keele in Town, to meet the CLOCK students, local legal professionals and community partners, who have since assisted more than 6,000 litigants in person through the courts, and now have a permanent home in the new Keele in Town building, in the heart of Newcastle-under-Lyme.

CLOCK, the Community Legal Outreach Collaboration, Keele – began after listening to "Voices of Experience"; a self-help group of women who had lived in a refuge after escaping domestic abuse, share their concerns and fears of having to face their ex-partners in court alone, after the significant withdrawal of legal aid - once available to 80 per cent of the population to now only 5 per cent (Legal Aid Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act, 2012).

Drawing upon my research in India working with women's groups, and observing my late husband's landmark public interest litigation case S.Krishnadas v Government of Maharashtra (1995), I understood the need for a collective and 'transformative methodology' for access to justice, and I invited representatives from our local legal profession, charitable partners, the court and the judiciary to develop the Community Legal Outreach Collaboration Keele (CLOCK) to co-create guidelines and train law students in the unique and innovative role for the Community Legal Companion, which has since been endorsed by the President of the Family Court  to assist i) filling in court forms, ii) arranging court paper work, iii) accompanying in court proceedings and iv)  taking notes, for which one woman noted the CLOCK Community Legal Companions were "my calm in the storm".

So it was a delight to recently celebrate the ongoing commitment and dedication of the founders of CLOCK to our local area at the launch of the CLOCK provision at Keele in Town. Jude Hawes of the Staffordshire North and Stoke-on-Trent Citizens Advice Bureau, Nicky Tremlow of the YMCA, Julie Thompson of New Era, Sarah Chevolleau of Staffordshire Association of Black Lives Equality, Anita Craig Staffordshire Mediation, and Claire Allen, Savana, in collaboration with CAFCASS and the local authority working together with the amazing support of Louise Cooke and Kim Sargeant providing the key to CLOCK, under the guidance of the local magistrates and dedicated Judiciary at North Staffordshire Justice Centre and the Hanley Combined Court.

Critically it's important to thank Anna Brunt and her team at Lewis Rodgers Solicitors, which have offices in Hanley and Crewe, and are the only legal aid firm which continues to provide training for our law students to assist litigants in person and generously provides a triage clinic every fortnight to assess whether litigants in person may be eligible for legal aid and to help people gather the documentation to provide evidence for the means and merit test to be eligible legal aid for representation in court. Anna has also provided training contracts and employed our CLOCK students (such as Sophie Dyer and Khansa Taha) to become much needed legal aid lawyers, and its' wonderful to see CLOCK alumni now become successful and socially conscious lawyers; Jazmine Wilde (Regent Chambers), Adam Mayers (Director Nowell Mellor), Erin Goldstraw (Poole Alcock) Olivia Johnson and Chloe Blaxill (Hall, Smith Whittingham) and Zuleika Rehman (Ann McCabe) solicitors, and Brandon Cole as a Senior Crown Prosecutor to name a few, with thanks to Sofia Bowler and Jo Meakin who have coordinated over 450 CLOCK community legal companions over the last 14 years.

Yet as Mike Wolfe noted CLOCK cannot turn back the time of the devastating legal aid cuts, but we have been to gather evidence to demonstrate the impact of cuts and to submit the evidence to the Government to make a significant impact to extend the Means Test and the Merit Test criteria for more people to access legal aid.

Keele in Town provides a one stop shop for the University to directly assist and contribute to the local community, but also with CLOCK having cascaded to 12 University Law Schools through the country and eight court centres, Staffordshire has become the pioneer for access to justice across the country.

To request CLOCK assistance please go to clock.uk.net.