Referring clients to FRU

FRU does not accept cases directly from members of the public. All our cases are referred to us by referral agencies. FRU volunteers represent clients in various tribunals within the Greater London and Nottingham areas. They do not have rights of audience in the County Courts. If you wish to refer cases to FRU, you must become one of our referral agencies. To do so, please fill in and return the application form.

Referral agencies are required to pay an annual subscription fee. At present the fees are as follows:

  • Voluntary Sector £40 per annum
  • Solicitors £125 per annum

When referring a case to FRU you should use our referral form and follow the guidance notes provided. A shorter one page version is also available here for use on noticeboards.

We ask that all organisations referring cases ensure that the clients they send to us comply with our charitable objectives. We currently receive about 1800 cases a year. We do not accept referrals where clients are earning over £50,000 per annum unless there is evidence to suggest they cannot afford legal representation. As FRU is primarily an advocacy service, we normally only provide representation once a case has been allocated a hearing date by a tribunal.

Rather than cases being allocated to volunteers automatically, the volunteers exercise their own discretion and decide whether they are available to take a case out or not. At times, we are referred more cases than we have volunteers to deal with them. FRU's staff have no control over which cases are taken by representatives. Until a case is taken out by a representative, it remains the responsibility of the referral agency.

FRU will always endeavour to represent clients in as many of the cases referred to us as possible. We represent some 2/3 of the cases referred to us annually. This representation rate varies during the year, as it is dependent on the availability of our volunteers and the nature and complexity of the cases referred to us.

FRU's London office is open from 9.00 am - 6.00 pm, Monday to Friday. The office is staffed by an administrator, an office manager, two legal officers, an assistant legal officer and a chief executive. The Nottingham office is open by appointment.

Please contact us for further details