NEW LEGAL SERVICES

LEGAL RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: april 2015 :: RMTnews 25 It was the late general secretary Bob Crow’s vision to establish our own legal department to service members in England and Wales. This is something that I believe in and have continued to develop. Previously lawyers in England and Wales were unable to deal with some of our work on a pro-bono basis in return for us giving them our personal injury cases due to a ban on referral fees (where a solicitor receives a sum of money in return for receiving personal injury cases). This so-called ban was aimed at unscrupulous claims firms but, like most hasty legislation, caught out the innocent in particular union’s legal services to members. All Unions and their Legal services were required to rethink how we delivered them both now and for the future. Fortunately the law in Scotland is different and the same regulations don’t apply so we are able to keep the same arrangements that we have with our Scottish Lawyers but in England and Wales we had to change. The solution for this union was simple, we recruited our own Legal Team. We now have three qualified solicitors working for us and have a trainee solicitor who is undergoing her training contract with the union; the first time this has happened. Our goal is simple, we aim to deliver a first class service to our members. I’d like ultimately to deliver a one stop shop where members can come to us and we can refer them on to the relevant specialist lawyers who will have been approved by this Union as worthy of working for us, covering areas of law from family to conveyancing. As a consequence of the expansion of the legal team and limited space in Unity House; we moved the Legal team to Maritime House where the offices are better equipped to allow our members and our legal team privacy. From the middle of the year our team will take on cases completely running them to the Tribunal. Whilst we are a medium sized union we punch above our weight and the Legal Team is no exception to this idea. None of our contemporaries offer this breadth of service. In addition we have developed a legal help line which is serviced six days per week (including Saturday) this help line is similar to a Citizen Advice Bureau and is able to deal with issues from sale of goods to neighbour disputes and terms and conditions of employment. Our call handlers are there to direct our members to the right agency; to help them with simple advice or to refer them to our panel of specialist lawyers where the member can instruct the lawyers and know that they have been vetted and approved by RMT and the lawyers’ fees will have been discounted and fair for our members. We also have a Criminal helpline in England Wales and Scotland. Increasingly because of the attacks on legal aid our members are turning increasing to us for advice and assistance whether it is work related criminal matters or non-work. I remain committed to our goal and shall work with our Legal team to develop our services in the year and years ahead. NEW RMT LEGAL SERVICES RMT general secretary Mick Cash explains the union’s new legal department and the services it offers members