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Pro bono work and social justice

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Figure 4 is an example petition. There is a heading ‘Petition Government and Parliament.’ followed by the text: ‘Dear John, Legal aid cuts hurt everyone. If you were facing criminal charges and the prospect of going to prison, what would you want? Would you be happy with just an ok barrister, perhaps someone who has done a few of these types of cases before? Or would you want to make sure you had the best representation, a barrister who was leading in their field, who could fight your corner. Could this make the difference,could this stop you going to prison? Should only rich people be able to choose the best representation? If you think everyone should have access to the best representation, can you sign the petition now? It only takes 30 seconds.’ There is a click through button with the wording ‘Sign the petition’. There is a bar showing how many signatures have been added so far, the text reads ‘77,375 signatures’. The target is shown as 100,000 signatures. The text continues .‘Thanks for being involved, Trisha, Mel, Simon and the rest of the team.’ The final line reads ‘Discussed in Parliament at 100,000 signatures’.

 2.4 The impact on trials