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Year-on-year trends

A snapshot

In 2022–2023, we provided a range of services to help people in NSW to know, defend and assert their rights.

Legal advice and assistance

We provided:

  • 117,891 advice and minor assistance services.
  • 11.6% increase on the previous year.

Casework

We provided representation in:

  • 44,283 matters
  • 8.8% increase on the previous year

Our in-house lawyers acted in:

  • 13,412 matters and we funded private lawyers to act in 30,871 matters.

Legal Aid NSW represents eligible clients in criminal law, family law and civil law matters. In most cases, our legal representation services are means tested, and most people who receive a grant of legal aid will be required to pay a contribution towards their grant of aid.

On-the-spot help in courts and tribunals

We provided:

  • 205,836 duty services
  • 7.6% increase on the previous year.

Of these services:

  • 123,055 were provided by Legal Aid NSW lawyers and we funded private lawyers to provide the remaining 82,781 services.

We make duty lawyers available in courts and tribunals throughout NSW to provide free legal help and representation to eligible clients.

Family dispute resolution

We held:

  • 2,753 conferences
  • 10.8% decrease on the previous year.

We helped parties reach an agreement in 72.7%* of conferences.

Legal Aid NSW is the largest provider of legally-assisted dispute resolution mediations in Australia. We provide family dispute resolution services to help separating families resolve disputes, such as parenting, adoption or property matters early on in proceedings and without the need to go to court.

*This includes family law conferences in both NSW and Commonwealth jurisdictions. The Commonwealth-only settlement rate was 72.6%. The percentage of Commonwealth-only matters was 98.5%.

Hotline for young people

We answered:

  • 16,684 calls to our hotline for young people
  • 7.2% decrease on the previous year.

The Legal Aid NSW Youth Hotline provides legal advice, minor assistance and information to young people aged under 18. Lawyers are available to answer calls from 9am until midnight on weekdays and 24 hours on weekends and public holidays.

Resources and community legal education

We distributed:

  • 420,598 factsheets, brochures and other publications
  • 40.1% increase on the previous year.

Resources were viewed online:

  • 596,666* times
  • 10.1% decrease on the previous year.

We provided:

  • 2,035 community legal education sessions
  • 54.2% increase on the previous year.**

*This only includes resources viewed before 9 June this financial year. 

** In last year’s report, we stated that we provided 797 community legal education sessions in 2021–22. The correct figure is 1,320 and was revised following the identification of system issues that had resulted in undercounting.