The firm
Hodge Jones & Allen is well known for being 'legally innovative' and 'committed to civil liberties work' and was one of the first legal aid firms, dedicated to fighting against injustice and righting wrongs for disadvantaged members of the community. Fifty per cent of work here is still legal aid-funded. The mainstays of the practice are crime, family, housing, personal injury, judicial review, civil liberties, wills and probate. Henry Hodge, one of the well-known founding partners, died in June 2009.
The star performers
Civil liberties and human rights; Clinical negligence (claimant); Crime; Family; Personal injury (claimant); Social housing.
The deals
Represented Catherine Smith in the Court of Appeal on the applicability of the Human Rights Act to soldiers serving abroad; advised on two significant multi-million clinical negligence cases including a case involving a failure to diagnose and treat a rare inherited disorder which left a child severely brain damaged; defending a girl, aged 17, arrested during the G20 protests in the City, and charged with burglary with intent to commit damage; defended Mustafa Gunduz, one of the accused in 'Operation Greensea', one of the biggest people smuggling investigations; represented Edward Browning wrongly accused of the murder of a woman on the M50 and imprisoned (his conviction was quashed and he was awarded £601,500 in compensation); succeeded in obtaining the acquittal of Khurram Arif, the only defendant to obtain an acquittal in the gang-related murder case R v Hussein, on the basis of alibi evidence.
The clients
The money
The Lex 100 verdict
Hodge Jones & Allen is one of few firms in this book that can offer you the chance of going to the Old Bailey on a big murder case or give you the satisfaction of 'getting homeless clients housed'. But then Hodge Jones is not like most firms. With a strong commitment to legal aid, its philosophy is to enable individuals to have access to justice where otherwise they might be denied it. Thanks to its reputation, 'the firm is able to take on some very interesting and high-profile cases, and even as a trainee it's possible to be involved'. And trainees here are well and truly on the frontline of legal services - whether through 'being responsible for the court and police station diaries, new client calls and visits, and anything unexpected that arose' or running a large caseload independently. If you're looking for client contact with the kind of clients that most corporate firms wouldn't touch with a barge pole, Hodge Jones can offer it in spades. On the training front, trainees say that the firm 'really invests in its trainees and sets out from the start with the attitude that it wants to keep you on, giving you lots of experience and support along the way'. You can expect 'various formal training sessions' as well as on-the-job training from 'some brilliant legal minds'. Supervision is 'fantastic' with trainees 'sharing a room with a partner which means that we are much more closely supervised'. The criminal department is very busy ('first month in crime - very stressful'), and the firm also has some interesting niches such as its military team which handles claims against the MoD, including judicial reviews of inquests of various servicemen killed in Afghanistan and Iraq. The firm's commitment to legal aid is 'hard hit by the 'reform' to the legal aid system and this can create pressure', but trainees think the firm is 'maintaining the quality of its legal aid work as much as possible'. If you want to train in a 'leading legal aid firm with a good emphasis on human rights and housing', it takes some beating.
