One of Herbert Smith's projects is the Whitechapel Legal Advice Centre, based at a Citizens' Advice Bureau in the East End of London, which has run every Tuesday evening for the past seven years, manned by a team of around 55 Herbert Smith lawyers who attend on a rota basis. Advisors are faced with a myriad of legal (and often practical) problems and advise Whitechapel attendees on issues such as debt, housing, employment, family, consumer affairs and minor criminal matters.

Darren Meale and Katy Macdonald explain what a Whitechapel advisor can expect:

An evening in the life of a Whitechapel advisor

In a scene reminiscent of John Grisham’s The Street Lawyer, we find ourselves wading through a packed waiting room full of anxious faces. The contrast is a stark one: only twenty minutes before we were trainee solicitors busying ourselves in Herbert Smith's grand Broadgate office, a million miles away from our FTSE 100 corporate clients, whereas the arrival at WLAC puts us face-to-face with real people; looking to us for help.

Along with the other advisors, we retreat to the modest offices at the back of the building, make ourselves comfortable and prepare our note pads. Then, like doctors in a GP’s surgery, we call them in one-by-one, offer them a seat and listen to their issues. Having only a single sheet of paper with a name and the barest description of the problem in front of us, we will invariable begin “Hello! Welcome, please take a seat – Now how can I help you?” What comes next can be straightforward and simple, legally complex or anything in between.

With a few sessions under your belt, your caseload grows quickly. Right now our clients include a father whose son is awaiting trial for murder; an unfortunate man chasing the credit card repayment cover a well-known building society refuses to pay up on; and a property-owning couple pursuing a dubious estate agent who one might expect to see appearing on the BBC’s Watchdog or Rogue Traders programmes.

Getting the necessary work done for Whitechapel clients isn't easy, and usually takes place back in the office, after hours, once you've completed your corporate clients' work for the day. It's then that we'll don our pro bono hats and delve into Halsbury’s Laws of England to find out, for example, exactly what rights our client has when he’s lived in a council house as a lodger for twenty years with his best friend, the tenant, who has now died. Now facing eviction from the home he has resided in for a third of his life, he's looking to a Whitechapel advisor to stand between him and an angry man from the council waiving a Notice to Quit.

Being an advisor at Whitechapel is humbling, and brings you firmly back down to earth. But it's not an easy task; the position comes with a great deal of responsibility and requires a great deal of work. But yet when you are able to successfully help a Whitechapel client and fix what can for them be a make-or-break situation, all the hard work pays off and it is a greatly rewarding experience.