Solicitors Panel

The National Centre for Domestic Violence provides support to domestic abuse victims across England by specifically focusing on the legal protection that a court order can provide.

We have our own in-house legal department, National Legal Service, which supports the work that we do but we also rely on a national solicitors’ panel for complete coverage.

Law firms are invited to apply to join our panel in areas where our existing coverage is not satisfying the demand for our service.

We are not government funded and we do not accept donations. We create our own income by providing solicitors with an optional document drafting service if they so require. We are proud of the quality of our work and we only succeed to thrive and therefore support vulnerable victims irrespective of their financial position if we give exceptional service.

In 2018 we provided over 2000 victims that could not afford legal aid or a solicitor with support to get a protective injunction, no other organisation provided this volume of support for free.

We had thought for a long time for a phrase that sums up everything we do which could instantly be recognised by anyone as to what our fundamental principle is.

We care for our clients, referrers, employees, solicitors’ panel, the police and the courts, but what we really care about above all is the victim – our client. We exist to provide service on a level that cannot be matched and what makes us strive to achieve such a high service level is the core principle that if we don’t then we will let our vulnerable clients down.

Of course we care about our income stream, without that we do not exist and we care about our taxes and our creditors which means we have to run our organisation with a business head. We have to have Managers, Directors, HR, Supervisors, Investors, fee earners, help line advisers, admin, accountants and many more and these have to be good people and we need to pay for them.

We try as hard as possible to deliver the best care we can for the income we receive. For us at NCDV– Every Client Matters

Solicitors that join our panel need to be hard working, compassionate, conform with all regulations, preferably have special skills in the domestic abuse and violence sector, have experience in helping vulnerable people and last but not least understand what we do and why we do it.

To help us understand you we have developed a questionnaire for you to complete which enables us to learn about you and your business, we need to thoroughly trust you with our clients and to do that we need to know you are able provide the necessary support. We also want you to completely understand us, how NCDV works and the dedication we commit to every client. So we invite you as part of our application process to spend a day discovering how we do this.

The Legal Aid Agency have issued a statement in relation to the arrangements for legal aid firms to be on a NCDV panel which you can download via the link at the bottom of this letter.

Please complete the application form which you can download below, return to me and I will then liaise with you to make arrangements for your visit.

If you have any questions in the meantime, please do not hesitate to call me.

Every client matters.

Yours faithfully

National Centre for Domestic Violence

Mark Groves

Chief Executive Officer

Download the Application pack

Legal Aid Agency Statement link