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Community legal education

Legal Aid NSW provides targeted community legal education (CLE) for priority client groups and community professionals

In 2022–23, we have been able to return to face-to-face CLE in more locations, particularly in schools and at community events.

As remote learning is still preferred by many and accessible statewide, we maintained a strong focus on online CLE. We have continued our popular Law for Community Workers webinars, podcasts and social media content and hosted a successful Lunch and the Law webinar series for Law Week 2023.

We delivered 1,389 CLE events, of which 769 were for community workers. These events involved a total of 2,035 separate sessions.

We delivered 1,009 CLE events face to face including contributing to 232 stalls at events across NSW. We distributed thousands of educational resources.

This year, we re-branded our podcast channel to Law for Community Workers, simplifying the name by removing ‘on the go’. We published 38 Law for Community Workers podcast episodes, which were downloaded about 10,000 times. Almost all these podcasts were collaborations with other organisations, and our most popular podcast this year was on the Australian Death Notification Service. We have released more than 125 episodes that have been downloaded more than 40,300 times since the podcast launched in 2018.

We hosted 312 online CLE events in 2022–23, including 25 live webinars that reached 1,473 attendees. We uploaded 30 videos to the Legal Aid NSW YouTube channel, which have been viewed more than 8,145 times. The most popular recorded webinar was about separation, divorce and property.

One of the main ways community workers find out about our upcoming events and new podcasts is through our Law for Community Workers email alert. This year, we sent out 23 alerts to our 3,447 newsletter subscribers. Each alert highlighted special events like NAIDOC, Seniors Week, Youth Week, Law Week and Refugee Week and contained links to our webinars, podcasts, publications and more. We also promoted webinars and events run by community legal centres and others in the sector.

CLE sessions by area of law*

Area of law2020-212021-22202223Change from previous year
Criminal law387145312115.2%
Family law19520832254.8%
Civil law1,1319671,40144.9%
Total1,7131,3202,03554.2%

*CLE figures for 2020–21 and 2021–22 have been revised following the identification of system issues that had previously resulted in undercounting.

Stalls at community events are a great way for our staff to engage with target communities, educate the public about the law and our work, and let people know how to contact us.

This year, Legal Aid NSW won the award for best community stall at Mardi Gras Fair Day – a great achievement as there were over 300 stalls this year!

NSW Law Week is a program of community events and activities designed to help people understand their rights, the law, the legal system and the legal profession.

This year, we partnered with the State Library of NSW, Marrickville Legal Centre and other services to host a special webinar series for the public called Lunch and the Law. We broadcast a different panel webinar each day of Law Week, including sessions on scams, renting, traffic fines and driving, employment and debt. We had 730 people in total register for our Law Week webinars and received 25 media mentions with a potential news reach of 587,000.

For the past eight years, we have delivered workshops for interpreters and bilingual workers to help them explain some of the tricky legal terminology they may encounter when assisting Legal Aid NSW clients, particularly at courts or tribunals. This year, we ran four workshops on civil and criminal law words, both face to face and online, for a total of 319 interpreters.

Our Legal Topics for Seniors Diary is our most popular publication and meets an identified need to provide legal information to older people in an accessible, usable and attractive format. We produce the diary with funding support from our primary sponsor, the Department of Communities and Justice, and other sponsors, including the Law Society of NSW. This year, we distributed 50,000 diaries and 22,000 calendars. Ten thousand of these diaries were distributed to seniors who attended the Sydney Seniors Week Expo in February 2023.

  • We delivered 194 CLE events in schools and youth services. Sessions helped young people build their legal life skills by enhancing their understanding of police powers, sexting and consent, discrimination and more.
  • Spotlight On is our podcast series for community workers about the wide range of specialist legal services available to assist their clients. The series includes 29 short, interesting and informative episodes that shine the spotlight on services such as community legal centres and Legal Aid NSW specialist services.
  • The launch of the new Legal Aid NSW website was an opportunity for the CLE Team to streamline our website content. The CLE page now focuses upcoming events and  information for community workers, schools and young people.

The year ahead

  • We will pilot a program of CLE to support and empower local young people through the  Cooperative Legal Service Delivery Program.
  • We will continue our podcast collaboration projects with a series on homelessness: A Place to Call Home.
  • We will conduct CLE for community workers and client groups about the new NSW laws on coercive control.
  • We will continue to promote and grow our Law for Community Workers platforms so more community and health workers can spot legal issues and know where to refer their clients for legal help.
  • We will work with our colleagues in the Communications, Statewide Advice and Legal Resources teams to conduct an office roadshow to ensure all staff at Legal Aid NSW are clear about what our teams do and where people should go for specific help.