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City Community Legal Advice Centre (CityCLAC)
The City Law School Building
165 Goswell Road, London EC1V 7HD
What does CityCLAC do?
The City Community Legal Advice Centre (CityCLAC) offers free, confidential, one-off legal advice to people who cannot afford to pay for a lawyer and are not eligible for legal aid.

How do I request free legal advice?
Please use our online enquiry form below wherever possible. This is the quickest and most efficient way for us to assess whether we can help you.

If you are unable to complete the form because of a disability, vulnerability or other difficulty, you can call us on 020 7040 5414 and leave a short voicemail message with your name and contact number. We will call you back as soon as we can, usually within 48 hours. Alternatively, you can email us at clac@citystgeorges.ac.uk with a brief description of your situation.

We aim to respond to enquiries as soon as possible. However, we receive a large number of requests for help and may not be able to respond to everyone individually. If we cannot assist you, we will try to provide information about other organisations that may be able to help.
 
What happens after I contact you?
Once we receive your enquiry, we will:
 
1. Check whether your problem is something we can help with.
If your enquiry falls outside our service, we will try to provide information about other organisations that may be able to assist.
 
2. Arrange an initial assessment if your enquiry appears suitable.
A team of law students, supervised by a qualified lawyer, may contact you to gather further information about your case.
 
You will not receive legal advice at this stage.
This helps us decide whether our service is suitable for your needs. We may decide not to offer an appointment if we believe our service is not appropriate or if our checks mean we cannot proceed.
 
3. Review your enquiry.
A supervising lawyer will review your information and decide whether we can take your case forward.

If we can help, we will confirm your advice appointment. If not, we will try to direct you to other sources of assistance.
 
Use of AI-enabled technology
We may use approved artificial intelligence (AI) and other technology-assisted tools to support our work, including legal research, document review, information management, administrative tasks and case assessment.

We take appropriate steps to protect your personal information, maintain confidentiality and ensure that these tools are used responsibly and securely.
 
AI supports our work but does not replace professional judgement. Our supervising lawyers remain responsible for decisions about your enquiry and any legal advice provided. We do not rely solely on automated systems to make decisions that affect you.

Further information is available in our Privacy Notice. CLICK HERE
 
Recording of calls and appointments
We may record some telephone calls and online appointments, including initial enquiries, assessments and legal advice sessions.

Recordings and any transcripts or summaries may be used to help us keep accurate records, prepare written advice and other communications, support student supervision and maintain the quality of our service.

We will tell you before any recording begins and explain why it is being recorded.

If you have concerns about recording, please let us know before your appointment so we can discuss how to proceed.

All recordings and related information are treated as confidential and protected by appropriate security and data protection safeguards.

How do we handle your personal information?
To assess whether we can help you, we need to collect information about you and your legal problem.

This may include sensitive personal information, such as details about your health, employment, family circumstances or other matters relevant to your enquiry.

We collect and use the information necessary to:
- Check whether your enquiry falls within our services.
- Carry out conflict of interest and other necessary checks.
- Arrange and provide legal advice or other assistance.
- Make referrals to other legal service providers where appropriate.
- Administer, supervise and monitor the quality of our services.

Your information is stored securely in our case management system and, where necessary, in other protected electronic or paper records.

Who can access or receive your information?
Authorised CityCLAC staff, students, supervising lawyers and volunteer lawyers may access your information where necessary to deal with your enquiry.

We work with external law firms and barristers' chambers to provide free legal services. Where necessary, we may share relevant information with these organisations to carry out conflict checks, assess whether they can assist and provide legal advice.

We also administer referrals through Lawyers Volunteering for the Arts (LVFA). Where you request assistance through this service, relevant information may be shared with participating law firms to assess whether they can accept your matter.

We may also share information where required or permitted by law, including in relation to safeguarding and other legal or regulatory obligations.

We will never sell your personal information. Everyone involved in handling your information must comply with applicable confidentiality and data protection requirements.
 
Who is responsible for your information?
City St George's, University of London is a data controller under UK data protection law. This means the University is responsible for how your personal information is collected, used and protected in connection with our services.

Our partner law firms and barristers' chambers also act as independent data controllers when handling your information for their own purposes, including carrying out conflict checks and providing legal services.

Our full Privacy Notice includes details of our partner organisations and links to their privacy notices. Where a partner organisation is involved in your appointment, we will identify the organisation and provide a link to its Privacy Notice in your appointment correspondence.

How long do we keep your information?
We keep your information only for as long as necessary and in accordance with our data retention arrangements.

How long we retain your information depends on whether you make an enquiry, receive legal advice or are referred to another organisation. Recordings may be kept for a shorter period than your case file.

Our full Privacy Notice explains these arrangements and your rights under data protection law.

Please read our Privacy Notice
Before submitting your enquiry, please read the LawIRL Services Privacy Notice (updated 21 October 2026).


The Privacy Notice explains how we collect, use, store and share your personal information, including our use of AI-enabled technology, call recording, our partner organisations and your rights under data protection law.

We need certain information to assess your enquiry. If you do not provide the necessary details, we may be unable to assist you.

This form is to request a legal advice appointment if you have a HOUSING ALLOCATIONS matter. 

If you would like help with another area of law, please use the below links. 


HOUSING ALLOCATIONS
Are you having problems with a council housing application or housing register?
 
We may be able to help if:
•    You have been refused access to the housing register
•    You think your banding or housing priority is wrong
•    Your medical, disability or welfare needs have not been properly considered
•    Your home is overcrowded or unsuitable for your needs
•    Your circumstances have changed but your application has not been reassessed
•    You are waiting too long for a decision
•    You need help asking the council to review or reconsider a decision
 
Our Housing Allocations Service can provide one-off legal advice and, where appropriate, help prepare a written request, supporting evidence or complaint.

Contact information

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Unfortunately we are not able to provide advice to members of staff or students at City St George's, University of London. We will send referral information to other sources of help.

We are approached by many more clients than we can help, and therefore select clients based on their resources to obtain alternative advice elsewhere. Please help us by providing the following information.
e.g. you may be a member of a Trade Union or have household or car insurance which provides legal expenses cover.

Housing advice appointments take place in person at the CityCLAC office (165 Goswell Road, London EC1V 7HD).

CityCLAC will never contact any of the other parties involved in your case.

The City Community Legal Advice Centre (CityCLAC) is committed to meeting the aims and commitments set out in its Equality Diversity and Inclusion policy. This includes not discriminating under the Equality Act 2010 (which protects characteristics such as religion or belief, race, age, gender, sex, sexual orientation and disability), and building an accurate picture of the people who use our services. 

CityCLAC is a member of LawWorks, the charity committed to enabling access to justice through free legal advice across England and Wales. LawWorks requests annual statistics from CityCLAC. Your personal data will be protected at all times.

We need your help and co-operation to enable us to do this and, if necessary, to improve our services, by filling out the details below. Any information provided below will be anonymised and kept confidential and will only be used for monitoring and statistical purposes.
The descriptions are based on the government’s 2001 Census. This question is not about your nationality, place of birth or citizenship – it is about the group to which you as an individual perceive you belong.

The Equality Act 2010 defines disability as “a physical or mental impairment” which “has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on [a person’s] ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities”.

Please take a moment to review your answers above. 

If you no longer wish to continue with your enquiry, please exit this webpage. None of the information you provided earlier in the form will be saved.