For lawyers
The following are potential pathways for lawyers to engage with and support access to justice by taking on legal work or supporting other activities.
Legal Aid pathways for pracititioners to undertake paid and unpaid briefs for their clients.
Practitioners can be given access to internal Legal Aid resources, including Law Hub. The internal legal resources in Law Hub include Legal Essentials that cover specific legal topics, and Manuals that cover a field of legal practice. These are grouped under Legal Aid WA’s main service areas of criminal, family and civil law, and then further by general legal topic.
Alongside the internal resources there are links to Legal Aid WA’s publicly available resources that are otherwise accessible from the public website but are included in Law Hub for ease of access. For example, web pages, information sheets and self-help kits.
Further details are available here > https://www.legalaid.wa.gov.au/
Law Access is keen to hear from lawyers interested in providing pro bono assistance.
By registering with Law Access, pro bono lawyers will get access to our Pro Bono Lawyer’s Portal. The Portal has a list of all of the matters we are trying to refer for pro bono assistance (in a de-identified way) and other helpful resources.
Law Access may also contact you directly about matters we are trying to place that relate to your areas of interest.
Further details are available here > https://lawaccess.org.au/
Community legal centres
Community Legal WA offers a directory of the 26 community legal centres which offer free or low-cost legal advice, which can be found here > https://www.communitylegalwa.org.au/pages/faqs/category/clc-location
Community legal centres value the support they received from practitioners.
There are a variety of ways that lawyers can support community legal centres, such as support with law reform, governance, fundraising, reviewing submissions and public documents and document production.
Other pathways
Lawyers may wish to contribute their time and knowledge in other ways such as engaging directly with community groups.
Examples include:
Many community groups often need contracts reviewed or ad hoc low-level legal advice.
Some groups are sought their advice on matters of policy or law reform which could do with assistance from a lawyer.
Some communities appreciate community legal education delivered by a practitioner on particular topics.
We encourage interested lawyers to consider their interests and find pathways to engage with the types of organisations and communities they want to support.