Providing services to those who need them most

Following the introduction of the Mandatory Disease Testing Act 2021 (NSW), we introduced a policy to ensure legal aid is available to represent vulnerable third parties responding to applications made under this Act in the local court.

The Act allows for mandatory blood testing of a person by either administrative or court order where a law enforcement, health, emergency or public sector worker comes into contact with the person’s bodily fluid as a result of the person’s deliberate action.

Vulnerable third parties will now be represented by a Legal Aid NSW lawyer in the local court in these applications, including children 14 years and over and any person with a mental health impairment or cognitive impairment that significantly affects their capacity to consent to provide blood to be tested voluntarily.

Following a change in the Children and Young Persons (Care and Protection) Act 1998 (NSW) that gives Aboriginal families and communities a right to be heard in care proceedings, we introduced a policy to ensure these Aboriginal families and communities could have a lawyer represent them. We also changed our definition of who is significant to a child to make this more inclusive and capture broader Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander kinship groups. This important change provides Aboriginal families with more and better ways to participate in court proceedings and more choices about who speaks on their behalf.

We introduced two important changes in our family law practice to reduce expenditure and ensure we can continue to assist the most disadvantaged families in this jurisdiction. 

Drug testing assessments

To manage the increase in court-ordered drug testing assessments for parties in family law parenting disputes, we limited the situations where funding for drug testing assessments will be approved. 

This means we can use our funds to assist families in need in other ways and continue to provide funding for drug assessment reports in exceptional circumstances where we are satisfied this could resolve the issues in dispute.

Funding for independent children’s lawyers

For the first time, we have introduced clear policies around when we will fund independent children’s lawyers. These policies will help us manage the demand for family law funding and protect the best interests of families and children most in need of representation.

Establishing the Respect at Work Legal Service (RAWLS)

Funding from the federal government enabled Legal Aid NSW to launch the Respect at Work Legal Service (RAWLS) in January 2023. RAWLS is a statewide service for people who have experienced sexual harassment or discrimination in the workplace. 

The RAWLS Team is spread across the state and includes both community engagement officers and solicitors. Lawyers now provide advice five days a week, with an option for services outside of business hours.

RAWLS solicitors provided over 400 advice and minor assistance services and opened 32 casework files prior to the end of the financial year. Seventy per cent of RAWLS services were provided to women, 11% to Aboriginal people and approximately 16% to people from culturally and linguistically diverse communities. 

Twenty-eight per cent of RAWLS advice and minor assistance services covered disability discrimination, and 21% were sexual harassment matters.

Forty-one per cent of representation services were for sexual harassment, 24% were for disability discrimination, and approximately 10% were for race and other sex discrimination. Clients received over $100,000 in confidential settlements in the first six months of the service. 

Over the next two years, RAWLS will build community awareness of rights in the workplace through engagement and legal education and expand the reach of their service.

Complex fines work

Our Work and Development Order Service worked closely with Revenue NSW to streamline the assessment of most fines matters. However, our complex fines work – such as write-off applications for debts over $5,000, internal review applications or orders for restitution debts – requires a significant level of advocacy to ensure successful outcomes. We now provide this as extended legal assistance, which allows lawyers to work with clients continuously, ensuring some of our most socially and economically disadvantaged clients get the level of assistance they require. 

Fee increases for private lawyers

In 2022–23, we announced another increase in fees paid to private lawyers working on criminal, civil and family law state matters. From 1 July 2022, the hourly rate for solicitors increased to $180, and fee rates for barristers increased by 5.8%.

Increased preparation fees for family law work

In September 2022, we increased preparation fees paid to family law solicitors in recognition that requirements had changed following the establishment of the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia (FCFCOA). We also provided solicitors attending more complex court-based mediations with an extra hour of pay.

We have removed our merit test for mental health inquiries to ensure involuntary patients can access representation. These patients can spend many years in involuntary detention, often because they are isolated and cannot obtain legal assistance.