The experience of an APPEAL Justice Fellow

Niki Vischer

Niki Vischer of Sidley Austin LLP

I was provided with the unique opportunity to join APPEAL as a Justice Fellow through the recently launched Pro Bono Fellowship programme of Sidley Austin LLP for its newly qualified Associates.

Over a three-month period, I had the tremendous pleasure of working with APPEAL’s small dedicated team of lawyers, investigators, case workers and further staff members in their fight against miscarriages of justice in England and Wales. In addition to the general hardships endured by the wrongfully convicted clients of APPEAL, I witnessed the additional constraints placed on them and their families by the continuing Covid-19 pandemic during the course of my fellowship. I was, however, also able to see and contribute to the invaluable support provided by APPEAL directly to its clients, their families and others for whom APPEAL provided consolidated information and guidance through its Covid-19 and Prisons webpage. The support provided by APPEAL to the families and other loved ones of their clients is one of many aspects of the holistic approach taken to their legal representation that has particularly stood out during my time on the Fellowship.

On a day-to-day basis, my work focussed primarily on reviewing new intake cases under APPEAL’s Innocence Initiative. This meant reading the many personal handwritten letters APPEAL receives from prisoners who are maintaining their innocence and looking for help to appeal against their convictions. I then reviewed all of the relevant documents we were able to obtain through the prisoner themself, previous legal representatives, the courts or parole boards, in order to identify the case made at trial and in any subsequent appeals or applications to the Criminal Cases Review Commission. Following identification of case issues and possible avenues for fresh evidence investigations, in addition to further review by an APPEAL case analyst and barrister, we would make the collective decision as to whether APPEAL committed its limited resources to taking up the case. This process provided me with first-hand experience of the often-unsurmountable challenges faced by prisoners maintaining their innocence, given the limited access they are afforded to their own court transcripts and underlying evidence.

I also led the work on APPEAL’s developing initiative into systemic issues regarding racial disparities in the appeals system. Despite recent acknowledgement of, and attempts to address, the known issues in the earlier stages of the criminal justice system, the absence of publicly available data is currently rendering even the identification of related issues in the appeals system incredibly difficult.

The Fellowship has provided me with an unforgettable experience and training to continue assisting APPEAL and its clients going forward from within private practice. It had the unique benefit of enhancing my understanding of the criminal justice system, which typically remains in the peripheries of my day-to-day work at a corporate law firm but is key to assisting many of our pro bono clients. It also augmented skills of great value to my career generally, including document review, research, drafting and building client relationships. In addition, being embedded in the organisation itself developed my appreciation of its general operation and business needs. These are in many ways similar to the operation and needs of other private practice clients, thus benefitting my ability to provide a holistic client service to businesses spanning other industries.    

Given my personal experience, I hope in future further law firms will recognize the value of embedding private practice solicitors within non-profit organisations such as APPEAL and follow suit in such forms of collaboration.