About us

Advicenow is an independent, not-for-profit website providing accurate, up-to-date information on rights and legal issues for the general public. We receive more than 450,000 visits a year. We’re sorry but we do not provide an advice service and we cannot respond to email queries. If you need legal advice please see Getting help

Web Award Winner

Advicenow is a winner of the Plain English Web Award, for the clear language, design and organisation of the site.

Our public legal information service brings together the best information on the law and rights from over 250 UK websites. We don’t use a search engine; we handpick every link. We check that it's up-to-date, and covers the issues that are most important and summarise it so that you know whether it is what you are looking for or not. For more details see About Searching.

We also produce accessible and attractive in-depth guides. Our aim is to inform people about the law, and provide practical guidance on how to manage problems - including when and how to get expert help. We use a range of techniques to get the message across: clear straightforward language, jargon-busters, case studies, diagrams, problem pages, quizzes and cartoons. Our guides are tested with members of the public to ensure that they provide the help and answers people really need, in the ways that they need them expressed. Each of our series of guides have been independently evaluated - for more details see Evaluating Advicenow's Guides.

Advicenow also wants to improve the standard of information on law-related issues available to the public. We test innovative methods to see what works best, and we try to share the results of our evaluations with others. We have drawn together the best practise guidance on how to produce effective information. See the Better information section for more details.

Advicenow are specialists in information provision.We have a wealth of experience working with government departments, voluntary organisations and frontline agencies to produce resources about the law and rights. We can do this for your organisation too - for more details see What Advicenow can do for your organisation.

Advicenow is a project of Advice Services Alliance, the coordinating body for independent advice services in the UK– for more details see About Advice Services Alliance.

Advicenow no longer receives any government funding. Instead we now rely on donations and sponsorship to keep the website up and running. If you have found this website helpful could you help us by making a donation?

We are grateful for previous grants from the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation, the New Opportunities Fund (now the Big Lottery), the Legal Services Commission, the Ministry Of Justice, the Equality and Human Rights Commission, the European Union Programme for Employment and Social Solidarity – PROGRESS 2007–2013, and the Treasury's Invest to Save Budget.