This autumn, we’re celebrating the Public Interest Law Centre’s ten-year anniversary!

Who are we?

We are a team of experienced lawyers and campaigners coming together to challenge unlawful state practice and systemic injustice through legal representation, strategic litigation, research and legal education.

For a decade we have used the law to defend working-class and marginalised communities, and support grassroots campaigning for social and economic justice. 

As we witness the deepening of racial and migrant scapegoating in the media, a housing emergency and government cuts damaging millions of people’s lives, along with creeping authoritarianism, we know our work is more crucial than ever. 

And yet, exactly when the demand for our work grows, our capacity to meet it is being decimated, as public funding for legal aid has been slashed. Legal intervention is vital but right now, we cannot meet this need without you. 

That’s why we’re launching a new Fighting Fund. Legal aid often doesn’t cover our costs and some cases we take on don’t qualify for legal aid at all. This fund will provide PILC with the resources to fight for our clients and to take on cases we know we should be taking on but currently can’t afford to. 

What we’ve achieved so far

As part of our anniversary celebrations, we’ve launched a brand-new website where you can take a more in-depth look at PILC’s timeline and scroll through our key legal cases and publications. Here are some highlights of our most important achievements:

• Exposing and challenging state failures to protect frontline migrant health workers and other marginalised communities in the COVID-19 Inquiry
• Challenging UK Lawyers for Israel’s legal threats to grassroots groups
• Quashing Spurs’ planning permission to privatise a public park
• Demanding investigations into British nationals complicit of war crimes in Gaza 
• Securing a fee waiver for bereaved partners’ settlement application
• Halting the redevelopment of the Aylesbury Estate 
• Overturning a 47-year miscarriage of justice with the Shrewsbury 24
• Ending Lambeth’s deceitful homeless prevention scheme
• Securing safe emergency accommodation for survivors of domestic abuse in Camden
• Saving Southall Town Hall from private sale
• Ending Home Office crackdown on homeless EU migrants
• Representing socialists, anti-racists and peace campaigners in the Undercover Policing Inquiry 

The next ten years

PILC is not going anywhere – we must keep the fight going. We will continue to hold state and corporate power to account, defend housing, land and community assets, as well as promote racial justice and migrants' rights. And we’ll continue to do this alongside and in support of the communities and campaigners leading the struggle. 

But the gap between what we can fund through legal aid and what our cases cost is widening. Every year we are turning away cases we should be taking on and taking losses on cases we fight. That is the reality we are asking you to help us change.

Support our work

A one-off donation today will help us build up the Fighting Fund we need to keep doing this work when it has never been more needed. 

£25 helps us provide free legal advice to someone who has been abused or failed by the state.

£50 contributes towards making legal resources shared with frontline organisations and grassroots groups.

£100 supports our legal education work, helping communities understand their rights and play a full part in their legal action.

£200 helps fund a strategic legal challenge that can change policy and practice for thousands of people.

We also invite you to sign up for our mailing list to receive updates on our cases and first looks at upcoming reports. Together, we can keep the pressure on. 

The law should work for everyone. Help us make sure it does.

Thank you!