School of Law take part in the Leeds Legal Walk and raise money for Access to Justice Foundation

Each year, the School of Law takes part in the Leeds Legal Walk which is a is a sponsored walking event.

The Leeds Legal Walk is organised by the Yorkshire Legal Support Trust, in aid of The Access to Justice Foundation, a charity that supports free legal advice services in local areas. Whilst this would normally take place in the form of a 10km walk around Leeds city centre, due to COVID-19 restrictions this year’s event took place virtually.

Between 12 and 18 July, thirty School of Law staff and students were split into six teams to take part in this virtual walk. To further community building within the School and following the success of two similar distance fundraisers previously in the year (‘Go the Extra Mile for Justice’ and ‘Move in March’), the School set an internal challenge for participants to not only target 10km each, but walk as far as they could in the week. The total distance covered by all participants was 826.12km, with the winning team, ‘Your Future Lawyers’, walking an incredible 235.62km. Teams were also encouraged to share motivation and pictures of their walks through a Microsoft Team chat group. Some team members were able to meet in person in small numbers to walk across the week. Just under £100 has been raised for The Access to Justice Foundation through this event.

The School’s Community Engagement Co-ordinator Niamh Byrne told us:

“It is wonderful to see staff and students brought closer together through events like these. At a time of so much uncertainty and despite the event being virtual, an incredible community spirit has been shown. The school has always supported The Leeds Legal Walk and it is great to see staff and students passionate about helping fundraise for such a worthy cause. We look forward to taking part in more events like this next academic year and supporting the local community.”