Meet our FLAC Summer Intern Leah
8 October 2024
As my time working as a Legal Intern in Free Legal Advice Centres (FLAC) is coming to a close, I wanted to take a moment to reflect on what an incredible experience this has been and what it has taught me. Firstly however I want to say a big thank you to everyone that I worked with this month, for their guidance, support and advice. FLAC is a human rights organisation that operates with the core aim of promoting equal access to justice for everyone. It helps people know their rights and guides them in understanding how to concretely access and vindicate these rights. Participating and contributing to this work has been extremely interesting and deeply rewarding.
One of the aspects of the job I enjoyed the most was shadowing solicitor Erin Brogan who oversees the running of FLAC’s telephone information line. It was interesting to observe how this information line works in practice, and the variety of legal queries that it receives. From family, to immigration, to employment law it was fascinating to see how Erin would navigate callers’ legal issues and provide first-stop legal information in a clear, concise and effective manner. Shadowing Erin gave me an insight to the degree and extent of impact that FLAC’s work truly has in promoting access to justice.
In the course of my internship I also regularly worked with the Public Interest Law Alliance (PILA). I wrote five articles for the PILA Bulletin, analysing recent judgments and the public interest slant to them. The first related to a landmark judgment in Slovakia that found the police guilty of ethnic discrimination. Secondly I wrote on a judgment, delivered by the European Court of Human Rights, which found a decision to discontinue investigation into the death of a Spanish journalist in Iraq because of lack of jurisdiction not to be arbitrary. Another article I wrote was on a Human Rights Watch Report that found inadequate access to abortion in the state of Mexico violates human rights. Working on the PILA bulletin was a great opportunity to practice in depth legal research and writing.
I was also involved in helping with the administration of the free legal advice clinics, as well as completing a piece of work analysing the different categories of employment law queries FLAC received last year. I found that these tasks gave me a good sense of the numerous and diverse types of legal issues that emerge in employment law (especially in relation to contract terms, dismissals, bullying/harassment and discrimination). Moreover it allowed me to understand how important the FLAC information line and phone clinics are for those with employment issues, particularly given the limitations on legal aid when it comes to such matters.
In my time at FLAC I also researched possible fundraising opportunities and partnerships with corporate firms. To conclude, I want to say a big thank you to Conall, my main point of reference, for his direction and teachings. As during my time at FLAC I was able to see the diverse types of roles and persevering efforts that it takes in order to keep an independent human rights organisation, like FLAC, up and running in an effective and just manner.
- Leah Bernasconi, FLAC Intern
FLAC Team at the Team Ireland Olympic Homecoming
