Legal Aid Department


The Legal Aid Department is a department of the Government of Hong Kong. It provides legal aid in the form of legal representation by a solicitor or barrister in civil and criminal proceedings in the District Court and above.
The department is headed by the Director of Legal Aid and is overseen by the Legal Aid Services Council.

Alleged abuse of the legal aid system

In the wake of a number of successful judicial review applications that were made with support from the Legal Aid Department, some pro-government voices criticised the legal aid system for being open to "abuse" and "monopolisation".
In 2021, the government announced a series of measures to curb applicants' ability to choose their own lawyer, and to limit the number of legal aid cases an individual lawyer could take up.

List of Directors of Legal Aid

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