Our 2022–2023 performance highlights

One Legal Aid, one year on

Last financial year, we launched One Legal Aid, our new client service model. One Legal Aid aims to make it easier for people to get appropriate support without needing to tell us their story multiple times or wait for long periods. One Legal Aid introduced a new Statewide Advice Team, consistent triage and integrated ways of working for LawAccess NSW and Legal Aid NSW. 

One year on, One Legal Aid has significantly improved outcomes for clients. We have observed a 50% decrease in client bounce, meaning people get the help they need or are given an appointment or referral the first time they contact us. Our Statewide Advice Team has grown and continues to provide advice to eligible clients no matter where they live. We have continued to co-design our services with the people we serve to ensure we are responsive to the needs and expectations of our clients.

This year, we built on the success of One Legal Aid with the launch of our new website, and next year we will introduce a new client portal.

Civil Law Blueprint: A focus on fundamental needs

In 2022–23, we finalised the blueprint for the future direction of the Civil Law Division. The blueprint sets the Civil Law Division’s statement of purpose: “To improve the lives of people experiencing deep and persistent disadvantage or dislocation by using civil law to meet their fundamental needs.”

This emphasis on fundamental needs focuses the division’s attention and resources on the work most likely to ease a client or community’s experience of disadvantage. This year, the division applied changes to triage flows and set up a specialist working group to review civil law policies and guidelines. 

Work on the roll out of the blueprint will continue over the next year, and it will continue to sharpen our focus on a more targeted group of clients and range of legal matters, supporting us to reach the people who need us most and make the greatest possible impact.

A new office for Broken Hill

Broken Hill is one of the most remote cities in NSW, located approximately 1,114km from Sydney, 500km from Adelaide and 300km from Mildura. It is also only 48km from the South Australian border and is a hub for smaller local communities.

Due to its remoteness, legal and associated services within the area are significantly limited. Many residents of Broken Hill and local Aboriginal communities experience deep and persistent disadvantage and struggle to have their legal needs adequately met. As a result, on 24 April 2023, we opened a new office in Broken Hill with a total of nine staff including four criminal law solicitors, a family lawyer and the first permanent civil lawyer in the Far West region. 

Civil support for Broken Hill and the Far West

After many years of providing outreach services from Sydney, the Civil Law Division now has a permanent presence – a full-time civil solicitor has been appointed to our new Broken Hill Office. 

Clients in the Far West face diverse civil law issues, and many clients have complex needs. Our new civil law service in Broken Hill collaborates with other Legal Aid NSW offices and specialist teams, including the Civil Law Service for Aboriginal Communities, to ensure clients benefit from the broad experience and expertise of lawyers across the division.

Legal Assistance for Families: Partnership Agreement

In February 2023, the Legal Assistance for Families: Partnership Agreement (LAFPA) trial began at three sites in Tamworth, Newcastle and Gosford. LAFPA brings together Legal Aid NSW, the Aboriginal Legal Service (NSW/ACT) (ALS) and the Department of Communities and Justice (DCJ) to reduce the over-representation of Aboriginal children in out-of-home care through early intervention and alternative dispute resolution. 

Under LAFPA, DCJ will refer families to Legal Aid NSW and the ALS so lawyers can work alongside them proactively before children are removed. We have worked collaboratively with our partners to embed the LAFPA objectives during the trial and to develop and deliver all-staff training on the agreement. Several applications have been made already for the early intervention alternative dispute resolution model developed in conjunction with the trial. 

There has been strong advocacy by the Family Law Division for the objectives of LAFPA to be embedded in upcoming legislative changes. In June 2023, we received strong indications that early referrals for legal advice as outlined in LAFPA are likely to be included as part of requirements by DCJ to make an “active effort” to keep families together prior to commencing proceedings, during proceedings and when children are in out of home care. This significant development should rapidly increase the uptake of LAFPA and assist it to become business as usual in 2024.

Birth certificate program promotes access to justice

Our Cooperative Legal Service Delivery Program (CLSD) supports 12 regional justice partnerships between legal assistance and community services, all aiming to improve legal and social outcomes for people facing social and economic disadvantage. Over the last year, CLSD has collaborated with the NSW Registry of Births Deaths & Marriages to offer 700 free birth certificates and assist 190 people, often older children or adults, to register their births for the first time. 

Without a birth certificate, applying for housing, engaging in school and employment, obtaining a driver’s licence or accessing income support and other government services can be difficult. Due to economic factors, literacy barriers or a lack of access to technology, many disadvantaged people can struggle to get a birth certificate if they do not have one already. 

Free birth certificates were offered at CLSD partnership events in regional locations, and we accessed existing relationships to offer these at breakfast hubs organised by homelessness services and at schools. Our partners from community legal centres, the ALS and neighbourhood and community services assisted at these events by taking applications, offering legal health checks and making referrals to their services.

Empowering lawyers to better respond to clients in distress

Funded by the Commonwealth Attorney-General's Department and led by Legal Aid NSW on behalf of a consortium of legal aid commissions, the With You program offers trauma-informed, rights-based training for the legal assistance sector on responding to clients experiencing distress, poor mental health and suicidality.

In its first year, With You ran nationwide consultations with the legal assistance sector, clients with lived experience of mental ill-health and carers, and mental health professionals. A total of 463 individuals participated in focus groups or interviews, and 71 responses were received through an online survey. We consulted with 195 lawyers, 98 clients with lived experience and 23 carers, family members, supporters and kin.

The program used this data alongside the expertise of clients, lawyers and support staff to co-design seven online training modules for lawyers and an industry-wide trauma-informed organisational toolkit. The team also presented client-centred approaches at the National Access to Justice and Pro Bono Conference in conjunction with expert panellists, including a person with lived experience of the justice system.

In 2023–24, With You will collaborate with a First Nations organisation to launch client-centred training for lawyers, allied professionals and support officers. Training will be freely available for community legal centres, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander legal services, family violence prevention legal services and legal aid commissions.

New combined Legal Aid NSW and LawAccess NSW website

Our new co-branded website is designed to empower users with legal information and support, and provides information on legal rights, available supports, and planning of potential next steps: www.legalaid.nsw.gov.au. 

It offers multiple channels to make contact or get information, including webchat with our highly-trained LawAccess NSW information officers, who can provide information, book an appointment with Legal Aid NSW or provide a referral to a local service. Web chat has been incredibly popular, and uptake has doubled in the first month of the new site going live.

The culmination of three years of design and development, our website has the user front of mind. It reduces confusion and duplication and makes it easy for the public, our clients, lawyers and community organisations to quickly find the information they need on any device.

Legal Aid NSW staff lead call for Dubbo Drug Court

Dubbo Drug Court was launched in February 2023. Alongside the local community, Legal Aid NSW staff members fought hard for the new drug court. The court offers offenders who live in the Dubbo Regional Council local government area the chance to participate in the drug court program, which has been shown to reduce reoffending rates by up to 17%. 

A ceremonial sitting to mark its commencement in Dubbo was held on 20 February 2023, and was presided over by Her Honour Judge Jane Mottley AM, Senior Judge of the Drug Court of NSW. Director, Criminal Law Rob Hoyles, addressed the court and acknowledged the significant contribution Bill Dickens, Solicitor in Charge at Dubbo made in advocating for the Drug Court at Dubbo and the significant impact that a proven therapeutic diversionary model would have on that regional community.

Legal Aid NSW have established a Dubbo Drug Court Team linked with our Dubbo office to represent clients at the new court.  

The Dubbo Drug Court joins other drug court locations in the Sydney CBD, Parramatta and Hunter regions that provide crucial programs to our clients.

Expanding support for women experiencing violence

In 2022–23, our Women’s Domestic Violence Court Advocacy Program Unit successfully rolled out $6.79 million in new funding to Women’s Domestic Violence Court Advocacy Services (WDVCASs) to enable them to deliver frontline case management.  

The expansion is the biggest change to service delivery by WDVCASs since Safer Pathway, a statewide program to assist victim-survivors of domestic and family violence to access services and supports that commenced in 2014. 

More than 50 full-time equivalent caseworkers have been employed across NSW as part of the expansion, and women experiencing domestic and family violence can now access longer-term, more intensive support if they have complex needs such as mental health issues, drug and alcohol issues, complex trauma or persistent homelessness. 

Aboriginal Legal Career Pathways Program

In 2022, we partnered with Macquarie University and TAFE NSW to create our Aboriginal Legal Career Pathways Program, designed to promote employment, credentials and careers for Aboriginal people in legal services.

This financial year, the first year of the program, we had 22 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people commence the program, and we are committed to recruiting a total of 200 staff over the next four years. 

Our partnership with Macquarie University and TAFE NSW under the Aboriginal Legal Career Pathways Program is the first of its kind in the legal assistance sector. It invites Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to study either a Certificate III or IV in Legal Services Administration or a Diploma in Paralegal Services at TAFE and establish a pathway into a law degree at Macquarie University while working in a legal support, client services, LawAccess NSW or grants officer role at Legal Aid NSW. 

Our Aboriginal Employment and Career Development Strategy 2019–23 commits us to having a workforce that better reflects our client base. We are excited about the ways our partnerships with TAFE and Macquarie University will support Aboriginal people seeking to establish and grow legal careers at Legal Aid NSW.

Implementing changes to our means test

Following a comprehensive review completed in June 2022 and approval by our Board in February 2023, we implemented changes to our means test to ensure we continue to target financially disadvantaged people. 

Our means test sets out the income and asset requirements to determine whether an applicant is eligible for legal aid. To ensure our means test is in line with increases in the cost of living, we developed new benchmarks for housing and dependant costs and updated income and asset test variables. We developed a methodology for a biennial review of these variables. We improved the guidelines for staff on exercising discretion to ensure consistency in decision-making. We also provided training and resources to staff and partners on the means test changes to ensure our processes and guidelines were well understood.