Community legal centre


A community legal centre is the Australian term for an independent not-for-profit organisation providing legal aid services, that is, provision of assistance to people who are unable to afford legal representation and access to the court system. They provide legal advice and traditional casework for free, primarily funded by federal, state and local government. Working with clients who are mostly the most disadvantaged and vulnerable people in Australian society, they also work with other agencies to address related problems, including financial, social and health issues. Their functions may include campaigning for law reform and developing community education programs.
The peak body is Community Legal Centres Australia. CLCs are the equivalent of law centres in the UK and community law centres in New Zealand.
There are as of 2020 eight Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services, with similar characteristics to CLCs.
There are also eight Legal Aid Commissions, which are state and territory government agencies, such as Victoria Legal Aid, which administers Commonwealth and state government funding of CLCs.

History

The Aboriginal Legal Service was founded in 1970 in Redfern, Sydney, to provide services to Aboriginal Australians, and was the first free legal service in Australia. CLCs were subsequently established in Victoria in the early 1970s and spread quite rapidly to other states and territories. Although from the outset they shared some similarities with the already established American "neighbourhood law offices" and British law centres, in their insistence upon effecting systemic change and their largely voluntary support base they had characteristics distinct from each. They grew out of broader concerns for social justice that gained momentum in the 1960s and which found expression in the anti-war and women's movements, Aboriginal rights campaigns, and other pushes for far-reaching social change in both the Australian and global contexts. However, CLCs are a unique expression of these social justice and protest movements and do not claim particular ties to any other campaigns. Throughout their history different CLCs have usually held common platforms in only general, rather than specific, terms.
When the first Victorian CLCs were established, they were often resisted by a legal establishment that was defensive about CLCs' criticisms of the elitism or inaccessibility of the legal professions, suspicious of CLCs' aims and methods, and concerned about protecting profits. However, soon after the Fraser government came to power in December 1975, some members of the wider legal profession had begun to acknowledge the importance of CLCs in improving the public's access to the law.
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, CLCs consolidated their position in the Victorian and wider Australian legal landscape, forging ties with different government and legal organisations.

Today

CLCs are independent, not-for-profit, community-based organisations providing a range of services to people in Australia, including people experiencing discrimination and disadvantage. , there are about 180 CLCs. Community Legal Centres Australia is the umbrella organisation for eight state and territory CLC associations. While some CLCs have developed close links with others, centres, for the most part, serve their own particular geographic or special interest communities, such as family law and family violence, credit and debt, consumer law, social security, migration, tenancy law, discrimination, employment law and child protection. Some centres focus on providing services for particular segments of the population, such as women, refugees and asylum seekers, older persons, children and youth, people with disabilities or Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
Centres provide various legal services, including legal advice and traditional casework, to individuals at little or no cost, as well as undertaking early intervention and preventative strategies, such as community education and development in legal skills, and engaging in advocacy for policy and law reform. They emphasise the demystification of the law and the empowerment of communities in their relation to the law, particularly by encouraging communities to be involved in their activities.
They develop and facilitate partnerships between providers of legal assistance and legal and non-legal services. They may also undertake test case litigation, critique police powers and behaviours, and monitor prisons systems and conditions.
Equivalent services are provided in the UK by law centres and in New Zealand they are called community law centres.

Funding

Community legal centres are partly funded by a complex and variable mix of state and federal government monies, offered both directly and indirectly. They are also funded by the proceeds of casework. However, they rely heavily upon the efforts and support of extensive volunteer networks, both lawyers and non-lawyers, to staff them without payment, without whom they would not survive.
Reviews of the National Partnership Agreement on Legal Assistance Services 2015-2020 and the Indigenous Legal Assistance Program were undertaken in 2018. On 2 April 2019 the Attorney-General, Christian Porter, said that "guaranteeing stable and long-term funding certainty for legal services delivered by Legal Aid Commissions, Community Legal Centres and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services was part of the Morrison government| Government's plan for a stronger economy" and baseline funding would be increased from in 2019–20 to ongoing from 1 July 2020. The announcement included plans for a single national mechanism to deliver legal assistance funding from 1 July 2020.
The 2018 reviews informed the National Legal Assistance Partnership 2020–25, which supports the "National Strategic Framework for Legal Assistance", published in 2019. This document outlines six guiding principles, and also states: "The principles of the National Strategic Framework should be applied consistently in a manner which supports self-determination and the National Partnership on Closing the Gap".
NLAP, a national partnership agreement between the Australian Government and all states and territories for all legal assistance funded by the federal government, provides funding for services delivered by: LACs, CLCs, and ATSILS. An independent review of NLAP has been undertaken, with the final review to be published on 29 February 2024.

National CLCs

  • Arts Law is the only national community legal centre for the arts. It provides free or low-cost legal advice, education and resources to Australian artists and arts organisations on a wide range of arts-related legal and business matters. Its "Artists in the Black" program delivers services to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists across Australia.
  • Environmental Defenders Office is the largest environmental legal centre in the Australia-Pacific, founded in 1985. It provides free initial legal advice on planning and environmental law matters. and has offices in Adelaide, Cairns, Darwin, Hobart, Perth and Sydney.

    By state and territory

Australian Capital Territory

Community legal centres in the Australian Capital Territory include:
  • The Aboriginal Legal Service, an ATSILS, was Australia's first free legal service when its first office was established in Redfern, Sydney, and it was also first to provide a Custody Notification Service in 2000.
  • The Youth Law Centre of Legal Aid ACT provides free legal advice to youth aged between 12 and 25. It provides advice on many areas some of which include family law, employment and apprenticeships, criminal law and traffic offences.
  • Canberra Community Law provides free legal advice and representation on matters of social security and tenancy, street law and discrimination and disability law.
  • The Women's Legal Centre provides services to women.

    New South Wales

CLCs in New South Wales operate with the support of a peak body Community Legal Centres NSW. there are 41 members of CLCNSW, including:
  • The Justice and Equity Centre, founded in 1982 as the Public Interest Advocacy Centre, a strategic litigation and policy community legal centre based in central Sydney.
  • The Kingsford Legal Centre has operated since 1981 at University of New South Wales, Kingsford as part of their Faculty of Law.
  • Marrickville Legal Centre is a non-profit community legal centre based in south-west Sydney but serving the whole of NSW, established in 1979.
  • The Redfern Legal Centre was the first Community Legal Centre in New South Wales and the second in Australia, established in March 1977.
  • Seniors Rights Service provides free, confidential advocacy, advice, education and legal services to older people in New South Wales, including advice on retirement villages and strata living.
  • The Tenants' Union of NSW was established in 1976 and is the peak non-government organisation representing the interests of tenants, including boarders, lodgers and other marginal tenants; Aboriginal tenants; public and community housing tenants and renters under other types of lease arrangements. It is the resourcing body for the statewide network of Tenants Advice and Advocacy Services, and specialises in NSW residential tenancies law.
  • Women's Legal Services NSW promotes women's human rights by providing free and confidential legal advice and referral, creating publications and running training workshops for community and support workers, and pursuing law and policy reform. The organisation specialises in domestic violence, family law, sexual assault and discrimination law.
The Aboriginal Legal Service is an ATSILS, and operates separately from the above.

Northern Territory

CLCs serving the Northern Territory include: