On an innocuous side street in Govan, lawyers from numerous creeds work ceaselessly to give a voice to the impoverished and disadvantaged in Scotland. Walking into the office of Govan Law Centre’s (GLC) solicitor-advocate and chief partner Mike Dailly, one is awed by the sheer volume of ongoing and past litigation. Ring binders and polly pockets piled high, even the desk is pinned down by a few cubic feet of legal cases. Despite the paperwork, the agile GLC is quick when required; just after 12pm a Farsi interpreter will help Mike’s colleague document the case of a homeless man before Mike drafts a petition for judicial review, ready for court that afternoon. “When you can achieve a success for client it’s literally life changing and I think that’s a wonderful thing. That’s why a lot of my colleagues gravitate towards a law centre because they have a sense of social justice and a purpose about trying to really make a difference,” says Mike.

For being a relatively small 29-person operation, GLC spins a truly staggering number of plates. From representing the homeless and standing up for tenant rights, to supporting education appeals for the disadvantaged and even personal debt, their remit is vast and ambitious. A total of 89 per cent of their clients in Glasgow have an income of less than £6,000 per annum and almost one third have a disability. They handled 5,392 cases last year and, as GLC partner Rachel Moon remarked, their funders get “great bang for their buck”. The centre even had the Glasgow City Council v X case heard at the Supreme Court this year, regarding the right to suitable temporary homeless accommodation.

Law centres are non-for-profit legal practices which defend the legal rights of those unable to afford a lawyer. The Scottish Association of Law Centres is a national network of law centres including GLC which carry out this crucial work. Funding for these practices is diverse, with GLC receiving finance from the Scottish government, the Oak Foundation, Glasgow City Council (GCC), the Robertson Trust and others. A strange quirk of this arrangement means that GCC is essentially funding the same lawyers that take them to court and threaten them with court action regularly. A refreshing dialectical component in the system of local governance. Managing and nurturing these funding sources is a mammoth task that would make any start-up techie grow pale.

A major portion of GLC’s work concerns homelessness with the team resolving nearly 800 homelessness cases across Scotland in 2024. Through GLC’s offices, which used to be a police station, one can find Lorna Walker, head of prevention of homelessness, in one of the old detention cells. She illustrates how their work provides essential representation for people in a system which is in crisis. Legal threats are often called for against local authorities reluctant to either provide hotel accommodation for rough sleepers (which is statutory right under Section 29 of the Housing (Scotland) Act 1987) or to move clients from hotel accommodation to furnished flats. The problem is immense when considering under the Homeless Persons (Unsuitable Accommodation) (Scotland) Order 2014 a local authority is obligated to move those living in unsuitable temporary accommodation such as hotels or B&Bs out into furnished flats in only seven days. It’s no surprise GLC has its work cut out. Lorna’s ‘cellmate’, solicitor Sophie Berry, works on the Women’s Rights Project and her pitch is striking. Studies show women are more likely to be at risk of homelessness but are less likely to present as homeless. One of the toughest challenges of her job is to make contact with women who are living in fear and reluctant to seek help, often due to domestic abuse or controlling behaviour. Less likely to be seen on the street, the problem of female homelessness is really buried in private life and difficult to access.

The Education Law Unit (ELU) is GLC’s legal team dedicated to tackling discrimination and upholding human rights in schools nationally. A seeming skeleton crew of four provide advice for parents and pupils Scotland-wide and regularly provide legal representation in additional support needs tribunals, sheriff courts and the court of session. In 2024 the team opened nearly 200 references to the tribunals and handled over 1,100 enquiries on their national helpline. As schools started again in August this year, Ross Wight, a caseworker at ELU, says they saw much of their work resolve as pupils with additional support needs and other cases were placed in a more suitable schooling environment. “The local authority phoned us up and said this just wouldn’t have been possible if you hadn’t submitted the reference … that’s really nice to know that we were part of helping a child get the right support,” he says.

Another major branch of GLC is the Govanhill Law Centre (GhLC) which is situated within the Govanhill community. Initially opened to tackle private sector slum landlords in Govanhill, a huge amount of GhLC’s work still focuses on the private rental sector but also involves all manner of welfare rights. Given Govanhill’s diverse ethnic makeup, with a long history of Asian population and more recently Roma and other eastern Europeans, the area has been fertile ground for monolithic private landlords to squeeze out profits at their tenants’ expense. From a lawyer’s perspective, the appeal of the job to Rachel Moon, head of GhLC, is the hands-on nature of the work. “You’re using the law with someone face to face. You’re doing the court application, you’re appearing in court, you’re doing every part of a case from start to finish,” she says.

Somehow, amongst all this critical work, Mike Dailly still has time to take up public interest litigation. GLC has saved Bucksburn swimming pool in Aberdeen from closure along with Renfrewshire head injury service in Paisley and Neighbourhood Network (an autism charity in East Renfrewshire). The winter fuel payments case was taken to the Court of Session and the list goes on. If the team sees a worthy case, they will take up the gauntlet. As Mike says: “Never be afraid to argue a case because you might lose. So what if you lose? At least you’ve tried.”