About us
Law for Life: the Foundation for Legal Education is an independent charity set up in 2011 to ensure that ordinary people have the knowledge, confidence and practical skills needed to deal with the law related issues they are likely to encounter in the course of their lives.
Law for Life is built on the work of Plenet - the Public Legal Education Network - and all Plenet's materials and publications are still available on this website. Plenet ran from 2008-11 hosted by Advice Services Alliance's Advicenow project. We are grateful to ASA staff and trustees for their support in setting up and sustaining the project. Plenet members will continue to receive news and updates from us about what is going on in the field of public legal education.
Our founding Trustees at Law for Life have a broad range of backgrounds from government, law and education. We are delighted to have Michael Smyth CBE as our chairman. We are supported by senior members of the judiciary and legal academics and we have initially been funded through donations. Our three distinguished patrons are: The Rt Hon. Sir Henry Brooke, Professor Dame Hazel Genn DBE QC and The Rt Hon. Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury - Master of the Rolls.
The Foundation will continue the work carried out by Plenet. Plenet's achievements, included creating an online membership network, developing a range of partnership-based pilot projects, creating an international research and evaluation group to bring together international interests, and producing key population-based research studies.
List of Law for Life's Patrons and Trustees
Our sincere thanks are given to Plenet's Steering Group for their hard work and enthusiam over the years.
How to get involved
Are you doing some PLE work you would like us to showcase?
- Starting up or running a project
- Doing research
- Interested in contributing to our newsletter
- Want to volunteer with the network
- Interested in a seminar or promotional event;
Why not join our network and send us your ideas?
What does Law for Life: The Foundation for Legal Education do?
Law for Life promotes good practice in delivering public education, provides a space for practitioners and researchers to share information and ideas, and improves awareness of the need for and value of public legal education.
Law for Life commissions research and supports the development of pilot projects to meet identified need. Evaluation of these projects provides the means to develop the theory and practice of effective PLE.
Publications (as Plenet) include 'Measuring young people’s legal capability', 'Knowledge, capability and experience of rights problems' and 'PLE Principles and guidance '.
The Law for Life website showcases good practice with a combination of tools, guides, case studies and analysis of the wide range of activities that involve PLE. The project commissions and publishes articles on key PLE themes to promote debate and discussion.
More about: Public legal education
Many PLE projects of all types and sizes take place up and down the country but they are often isolated initiatives and don't get reported. We gather reports and contributions from the wide range of organisations doing PLE work. Through sharing our successes, and our failures, we can learn from each other's experiences and add to our common knowledge.
Law for Life is building an active network of PLE practitioners to provide mutual support, foster cooperation, and develop new initiatives.
Join our network to get a regular newsletter and priority booking for events and conferences.
Updated September 2011
Law for Life: The Foundation for Public Legal Education is a company limited by guarantee, registered in England & Wales no. 07695486. Charity no. 1143589. Registered office: 50 Featherstone Street, London EC1Y 8RT.
