United Kingdom (UK), United Kingdom
Lawyers for Nature (LFN) is a Community Interest Company whose origins lie in the successful legal assistance given by our co-founder, Barrister Paul Powlesland, to a grassroots campaign to save thousands of street trees from being felled in Sheffield. We aim to democratise access to legal support for those seeking to defend the natural world and also change corporate governance structures in favour of nature.
LFN’s members are a mix of law students, professionals and volunteers from a diverse range of backgrounds. We are united by our drive to create a more inclusive legal system, so that community action groups and environmental defenders can access the support they need to protect nature and their local environment. We do this through a mixture of education and awareness, while raising funds for specific local projects. Join our Community Discord here!
What do we do?
At Lawyers for Nature, we empower people to use the law themselves to protect nature. We seek to redress the power dynamic, so that the communities that need access to the law have the tools and education required, when they most need it. We are democratising access to the legal system for nature defenders. We do all of this through our four core aims:
• Adapting the corporate governance of organisations around the UK, putting nature at the heart of decision-making processes
• Providing research opportunities for legal students interested in high-profile activism, corporate governance and administrative casework
• Research on cutting-edge legal concepts related to nature, including legal representation of non-persons and its interaction with the right to a healthy environment
• Provision of legal guides and advice on specific, high-profile transactional cases including the Judicial Review process