Therium Access, the not-for-profit arm of litigation funder Therium, has handed out another £400,000 in grants to access to justice charities, taking the total to £1.4m since launching last year.
Some 24 organisations across the UK and Europe have now received grants, on top of the £100,000 contribution to seed the Community Justice Fund, an initiative supporting advice agencies that are struggling to cope with the increased demand for their services as a result of Covid-19.
Partnership
Therium has also announced a partnership with tech company Solomonic are teaming up to advance the application of analytics to litigation funding.
Therium will draw on Solomonic’s litigation data and intelligence while providing user insight and input into future product development.
Therium co-founder and chief investment officer Neil Purslow said:
“We are always looking at ways to innovate our approach to investments and, thanks to Solomonic, strong historic case data is now available to underpin our investment decisions when assessing claims that require funding".
“We look forward to exploring how big data and AI can add value to how we undertake due diligence and value our claims, in partnership with the leading UK player in this exciting new field.”
The latest recipients are:
Access to Social Care: a grant to cover the salary of a part-time legal manager in the South West of England and Gloucestershire to provide access to justice for people with social care needs;
ClientEarth: a grant towards its environmental democracy team, whose work underpins the whole organisation’s aim of tackling environmental challenges through the power of the law;
Crosslight Advice: a grant contributing towards the core costs of its work to ensure the agency can continue its debt advice service and expand capacity to support a greater number of vulnerable and marginalised individuals and families;
Hope for Justice: a grant for the salary of an independent modern slavery advocate to support the increasing number of victims of modern slavery to understand and access their legal rights and entitlements;
Legal Aid Practitioners Group: a grant to fund a head of learning and development role;
Public Law Project: a core funding grant to support its work to provide public law remedies to those marginalised through poverty, discrimination or disadvantage to hold public authorities to account during Covid-19;
RCJ Advice: a grant for a specialist bankruptcy and debt caseworker to provide a daily specialist bankruptcy and debt drop-in service at the Central London County Court, which was at risk of closure following the unexpected withdrawal of funding; and
Urgenda Foundation: a grant to support the work of the Dutch charity’s project, Climate Litigation Network, in its mission to support communities and individuals to hold their governments around the world accountable for inaction on climate change.
Therium Access said the large number of applications it received highlighted “the huge funding gap experienced by organisations that exist to provide legal advice and support to the most vulnerable in society”.