Many of us take for granted our human rights without ever knowing exactly what they are, but when the time comes where your rights are violated, you need the right legal representation to ensure justice is served.
Step forward the human rights law firm. These are people who have committed their careers to protecting the human rights of their clients, ensuring that organisations and public sector groups are held to account for any systematic discrimination, and conducting research into current and historic breaches of our rights and freedoms.
But what exactly is it that these highly qualified experts do on a day-to-day basis? This article will look at human rights law, and those who practice it, in a little more detail, giving you all the information that you need if you are looking for a human rights lawyer, or simply want to know what your rights are?
What is human rights law?
Human rights law, unsurprisingly, covers issues relating to the fundamental human rights, first set out in EU law and being written into UK legislation via the Human Rights Act 1998.
These rights cover human dignity, equality, and civil rights and anyone who fails to uphold the rights and freedoms of others is subject to prosecution.
Just some of the common issues dealt with by a human rights lawyer include freedom of speech, living conditions for those in poverty, immigration rights, privacy violations, LGBTQ+ rights and much more besides.
Human rights lawyers will fight extremely hard to protect the rights of their clients no matter their age, race, gender, or social background.
What is the job of a human rights lawyer?
Human rights lawyers have the task of upholding and enforcing human rights law and ensuring that anyone whose rights have been breached gets the justice that they deserve.
As with any other area of law this requires a huge amount of skill and case law research, particularly when two rights potentially conflict, such as cases involving freedom of expression claims against the right to privacy.
Human rights lawyers must have a broad understanding of the law as a whole as well as specialising in human rights in particular, and many specialise even further, focussing on abuses against certain groups such as those with a mental or physical disability, staff that have been unfairly let go, refugees, and more.
No branch of law requires a more varied understanding of each different type of law than human rights and civil liberties.
When they take on a case, it is the task of a human rights lawyer to gather the facts of the case, examine the evidence, and produce the strongest possible case on behalf of their client. If it reaches that stage they will present this case in court, but often lawyers will decide, in consultation with their client to make an agreement outside of the courtroom with the opposing party.
There is a huge amount of research that goes into being a successful human rights lawyer. In order for a lawyer to represent their client in the best possible way they must not only be an expert on all the details of the case itself, but also have an extensive grasp of all the relevant case law and precedent that may give them the edge.
Some human rights lawyers will only represent individuals who have had their rights violated but others, will hold companies and Government groups to account, ensuring that their policies and workplace environment conforms with all the relevant human rights obligations.
Companies will often even hire their own human rights lawyer on a consultation basis to review their practices and work place to determine that they are conforming and are not in danger of future legal repercussions.
How much does a human rights lawyer cost?
As human rights lawyers frequently represent those with a lower than average income they tend to charge less than leading criminal or corporate lawyers and do a significant amount of their work pro bono, without charging the client at all.
They will often charge more for their consultation work in order to have the funds available to take on the cases that matter the most to them and help individuals in their time of need. Many lawyers even operate other legal services such as overseeing personal injury claims to facilitate their human rights work.
This is where being a human rights lawyer does vary slightly from other strands of law. It is not the place for those whose sole motivation for law is to make money and those who do not have a passion to do good and to help those who need it most and have been through potentially traumatic events will not tend to last very long in the role.