Freedomlawclinic Reviews 19

A very well organised and structured work experience course with regular meetings that ensured progress was being made. I have because of this gotten a much greater experience of the Criminal Process which I am now more seriously looking towards having a career in.

I've enjoyed my time on the QWE programme working on real legal cases. I am developing the ability to carry out legal research and understand the different issues in a case. The feedback given by Freedom Law Clinic is helping to improve my paralegal skills.

I've been working at FLC for a while now, and it has been an insightful experience! Learning new knowledge and putting it into practice has been beneficial for my career, I got to explore a variety of areas in law and it has been so fun. I'd also like to thank my supervisors for their support.

As a QWE student at Freedom Law clinic since the past 6 months , I have gained support and guidance working on real life cases and gaining skills to support my legal career. Coming from a non legal background I have learnt different skills in legal research, legal drafting , speaking to clients and working on multi cases, understanding legal terminology and working to deadlines and timeframes. This experience has helped me put my SQE Knowledge into live cases which has helped me become confident and well equipped to know what is expected of me in the future. Studying the SQE and working as a QWE caseworker at FLC provided me the balance to put my knowlegde into experience and also gain valuable feedback to improve.

FLC provides a unique experience both in terms of their SQE Materials and QWE.

Engagement with pro bono work such as Community Protection Notices provided a platform to develop my skills in client care and legal research as well as benefitting from applying criminal procedure first hand (such as disclosure rules).

The FLC tutors are knowledgable in their areas of law and it is great to be able to learn from their experiences as criminal barristers, magistrates, and practicing solicitors.

Their online learning platform makes it easy to navigate and use their revision materials and provides an overall streamlined experience.

I have just completed a Knowledge Review with Luke Gittos in preparation for my SQE exam. I thought the session was very useful - the questions were well-thought and tested me on niche points of the law. The questions also covered a broad range of topics, helping me understand my level of knowledge in each area. At the end of the session, I received personalised feedback and was able to identify my strengths and weaknesses. Luke was kind, patient and well prepared. I would recommend this experience.

When I was at the stage of applying for a training contract, with many applications I was unsuccessful. I still had the determination and will power to qualify as a solicitor. I did my research and saw all the providers and then saw that Freedom Law clinic offered to do the SQE and qualifying work experience and the monthly payment was good too. I signed and got onboard in July 2022. Since then till now it was the right decision to join. As I learnt a lot with the active learning we get, if any questions we can ask in our session or after. The QWE we get gives us more confidence and has given me confidence to work on live cases. I have worked on two cases and currently working on my next QWE case work. I would recommend that if you are looking for active learning, honest feedback, where they tell you, what are your strengths and where you need to improve. You then know, what you need to work on. This is very important and for me it is. As it showed me honest picture of how I can improve. As before coming to Freedom law I didn’t get any honest feedback on my performance and what could be improved. Since being at the clinic, till present, it was the right for me. As I was tired from Training contract applications, being here gives me confidence that I will qualify as a solicitor in a better way.

I passed SQE1 and it was my second attempt. I failed the first time because I had solely relied on the materials supplied by one provider of the exam preparation course. The SRA has not supplied a comprehensive syllabus or past papers, so the course providers are left in the dark making educated guessed regarding the exam content. These are the course providers, such as QLTS or Barbri, who have years of expertise in legal exams course preparation. They deliver sophisticated programmes backed by significant financial and practical infrastructures. They employ many professionals.

How many staff members are employed by Freedom Law Clinic? It is not obvious. How many of them are solicitors? How experienced are they? We don’t know. To make the matters worse, when you sign up for any of the Freedom Law Clinic courses, as long as you provide a name, some address and email, and you pay the money, you are on the programme. No identity or qualification checks are done, yet sensitive data of supposedly live criminal cases is shared with anybody around the world who paid the first instalment.

As far as qualifying work experience is concerned, the SRA asks you to be wary of pro bono clinics. Qualifying work experience involves at least 15 hours per week working face to face in a real firm as you develop your professional and interpersonal skills required to become a solicitor. It is not a few hours a week online as in Freedom Law Clinic.
Ask Freedom Law Clinic to supply a sample of their training materials. All serious course providers do so readily on their websites and YouTube. The five-star reviews of Freedom Law Clinic do not include any meaningful details about the quality of their courses; they all sound overinflated and artificial: ‘A friend told me about FLC, and I am super impressed.’

‘We believe traditional law schools are outmoded, expensive, and exclusive,’ reads the statement on the Clinic’s bombastic and sloganeering but makeshift and sparse website filled with spurious claims and no evidence of anything concrete. Dear prospective students, you have been warned! If it is too good to be true, perhaps it is too good to be true.

The core measure of any law school or legal tuition provider is the quality of the teaching. At Freedom Law you can be assured of the very best tuition to prepare you for the SQE1 and 2 exams.

I had been a student at Freedom Law for about a year and then took a short break for family reasons. I have now restarted studies with them.

Over the time I have been with the school there has been a steady improvement in the technology and organisation, delivering a steadily improving student experience - and it was good to start with.

I have undertaken 2 undergraduate degrees and one post-graduate masters degree in law so I have a lot of (and recent) experience in academia. Freedom Law taken an approach of 'active learning' which benefits students a lot more when facing the particular flavour of the SQE exams. By using student participation to answer SQE style scenarios, this gives a better preparation for the exam format than a conventional degree-style delivery.

Fake reviews for a fraudulent company exploiting the current situation and the lack of regulation of solicitors qualifying education. Beware, anybody can set themselves up as an SQE training provider, there is no SRA regulation. There is no fun shortcuts to passing the SQE. Buy books on Amazon, study, put in as many hours of study as you can and do not give your money to the frauds such as Mr Gitos. You are going to need the money for SQE 2.

I participated in the criminal appeals programme and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. The programme developed both oral and written advocacy which is essential for aspiring barristers.

The instructor made the experience very engaging. The knowledge they had of both the case and the law made it a lot easier to improve and come back the following week with a better understanding of how to take on the specific task.

Anyone seeking to explore the criminal barrister route in particular, should think about participating on the criminal appeals programme. The skills required to complete the course mirror the skills required of a criminal barrister.

If you are a non-law graduate with a full or part-time job, in an unrelated field, this could probably be the best option for you. I am currently doing my SQE/QWE Programme at FLC, and this has been one of the best decisions I made while trying different means to navigate my legal studies and career.

At the moment, no other SQE provider meets the need to provide active learning with real-life cases that could count for QWE. This made the Freedom Law Clinic stand out for me. In order words, this programme is suitable for both Law and non-Law graduates seeking to qualify as a Solicitor in England and Wales.

The programme is very flexible and can accommodate a busy lifestyle. Students can also catch up on missed lectures with the recorded videos. I do not live in London/UK and I have been able to seamlessly continue my studies. Hence, I highly recommend this programme and the Freedom Law Clinic for your SQE/QWE training.

I did the 6-week criminal appeals programme and really enjoyed the hands on experience in reviewing and summarising lengthy case documents, preparing draft documents, such as attendance notes, and client letters. We also practiced presenting our work and received detailed feedback. The instructor was extremely knowledgeable about the criminal appeals process and I think this is a great opportunity for any budding criminal solicitors or barristers to gain valuable insight and experience into criminal appeals.

Very informative. The tutors are all helpful. I’m glad to enrolled with this school.

FLC is an excellent program to support SQE students requiring support on a low budget. The teaching is engaging and fun and with the interactive teaching method including valuable experience through casework provided you are sure to be able to do well in the exams. I hope to take the exams this year but feel I have been able to update my knowledge well and be better prepared for the upcoming exams. Thank you for the hard work of the FLC team, for all your support and consideration for times I was not able to continue with the course and had to pause due to surrounding circumstances.

I enjoyed my experience with Freedom Law Clinic and its advocacy training, which focuses primarily on criminal appeals. This gives students such as me the opportunity to prod around relatively recent cases and to test the waters. It is a good way to establish the world of criminal law for novice law students who are curious about this aspect of the law and are apprehensive about whether they should pursue it as a career.

A truly innovative company that aims to transform the legal education.

The company, Freedom Law Clinic (FLC) has four directors, two are involved in the delivery of a service to the public. The service involves an alleged provision of training and experience to become a solicitor.

The rules to become a solicitor in England have changed recently and a new route of qualifying was introduced by the Solicitors Regulatory Authority. This route involves passing two Solicitors Qualifying Exams (SQE 1 and 2) and completing two years full-time (or equivalent) qualifying work experience (QWE). QWE involves working in a law firm or other organisation providing legal services, during which the candidate must develop core skills and competencies needed to be solicitor. QWE should be confirmed and signed off by a solicitor.

FLC claims to provide preparatory courses for both SQE 1 and 2 as well as QWE. There are no entry requirements and the programme, which is conducted entirely online, can be joined by anybody around the world who is able to pay the fee. The fact that virtually anybody can join and leave the programme at any time has some serious data protection, criminal litigation and legal advice confidentiality implications. Yet, the trainees from around the world receive no warning or training in this respect and are allowed unrestricted access to confidential materials.

The programme fee is £3,000 a year and it can be paid monthly. The company has no offices apart from the c/o address of Murrays Partnership Solicitors. The only solicitor working for the company is the director, Luke Gittos, who is also employed full time as a partner in Murrays Partnership Solicitors. The company does not possess any IT infrastructure or team but it operates via free chat platform (called rocket chat). An attempt to install a basic small business or household task management software was made but failed due to the lack of a qualified IT professional. Another director who is also involved in provision of the service is Khaled-Hussain Dupree, who is listed in the Companies House as a lawyer but is not qualified as a solicitor or possesses any significant legal knowledge. His LinkedIn CV reveals, however, a significant background in luxury property development in India.

What FLC defines as unparalleled QWE involves access to a shared drive consisting of documents relating to about seven outdated criminal law cases, all of which have exhausted all the avenues of redress and had permissions to appeal repeatedly denied. Because of the historical and meritless nature of the cases the likelihood of a new development, angle or evidence is close to none and opposite is often true, that is, much crucial evidence had often been lost or destroyed. From reading the remaining evidence documents and the weekly 15-minute online meetings, students are supposed to rustle up (fabricate?) full-time QWE covering numerous solicitor skills and competencies. FLC also erroneously states that the study for the SQE counts towards QWE.

The provision of SQE1 and SQE2 preparatory courses are usually the domain of large organisations. SQE1 and SQE2 preparatory courses are challenging and complex endeavours requiring the input of many experienced professionals. One of the two main organisations is called Barbri, a company set up in 1967 and headquartered in Dallas, Texas whose primary product offering is a US bar review course. Another is QLTC School, who over the years has been helping international lawyers to qualify as solicitors in England. Both companies are run on a scale not comparable to that of FLC. Yet, FLC set itself up to compete with them claiming to provide training support of a similar category. Barbri, for example, offers thousands of multiple choice questions, one-to-one learning coaches, monthly workshops and video tutorials led by top legal educators and practitioners in each subject. What FLC offers are web pages with loosely-related coverage of each topic compiled by Luke in his spare time. This is a laughable bare minimum – enough not to be accused of fraud outright.