Interview: Law centre Solicitor Richard Hazell recently retired after half a century of championing the vulnerable

By Barrie Hudson barrie@positive-media.co.uk

For Richard Hazell, standing up for those who have difficulty standing up for themselves is in the blood. He grew up between Windsor and Slough. His Quaker father was a teacher who tried to start a Middle Thames branch of the Howard League for Penal Reform. His mother was a voluntary probation officer in Slough who helped to start a group for prisoners’ wives, and his barrister brother wrote a respected critique of the Bar called The Bar on Trial.

Richard himself studied Law at Kent University from 1971 to 1974, and it was during those studies that he became aware of law centresorganisations providing legal help to people who might otherwise have been denied it because of prohibitive costs.

Richard said: “I approached North Kensington Law Centre to go and work there as a student placement in 1973, and they said yes.

“It was an amazing experience - here were these young lawyers doing radical law in a former butcher’s shop on Golborne Road, and next door was a music shop with a speaker outside on the street, blasting out reggae all day long, and there was me aged 20, writing letters to the DHSS or horrible landlords or something.

“I thought this was just fantastic. I’d found a career I really enjoyed; it was radical and it was fun. Compared to private practice, which I