Working collaboratively: COMMUNITY LEGAL CENTRES AND PRO BONO PARTNERSHIPS Community Legal Centres (CLCs) are independent, not-for-profit, national children’s and youth law community-based organisations centre – lawmail that provide free legal and related The National Children’s and services to the public, focusing on Youth Law Centre (NCYLC) is disadvantaged people and those with a Community Legal Centre special needs. They offer creative, dedicated to working for and effective and targeted solutions to in support of Australia’s their clients’ legal problems and, children and young wherever possible, to the causes of people, their rights those legal problems. and access to justice. CLCs’ Pro Bono Partners and Established in 1993, their contributions the NCYLC uniquely provides all of its legal CLCs, both generalist Centres serving education and advice their local geographic community and online – through its the specialist, often state-wide, services legal information that focus on a particular target group, website, Lawstuff, and such as women experiencing or at its email legal advice risk of violence, tenants, or welfare service, Lawmail. The use of recipients; are adept at garnering pro technology makes legal services particularly accessible to young people, bono support from lawyers from private who prefer using mobile/online forms of communication, and those law firms. The ability of CLCs to leverage living in rural, regional and remote areas. such high levels of support through pro bono partnerships is a distinguishing Lawmail is a free legal service for Australians under 18 and their feature of the sector. You’ll read some of advocates. Added to the Lawstuff website in October 1998, the Lawmail their diverse stories in this brochure. service is supplemented by occasional telephone advice and minor casework assistance. Supported by pro bono partners, coordinators and You’ll also read about some of the work a secondee solicitor from King & Wood Mallesons, as well as volunteers performed by the pro bono partners from Telstra and ASIC, Lawmail responds to online legal queries covering of another type of special CLC – the topics such as family relationships, family violence and abuse, issues public interest law clearing houses about leaving home, police powers and criminal law, school powers and (PILCHs) – services that grew out of the age of consent. CLCs and have become stand-alone experts in obtaining pro bono support King & Wood Mallesons has provided particular assistance to NCYLC and strategically matching up private through the Lawmail system, hosting five to six “cyber volunteers” in lawyers with clients who cannot obtain their technology training room and coordinating a roster of around legal help elsewhere. One of these 80 volunteer lawyers from King & Wood Mallesons offices. King & services, Justice Connect, which was Wood Mallesons has provided financial and other assistance to grow formed when PILCH NSW merged with the Lawmail service, including funding a dedicated solicitor to work PILCH Victoria, works with thousands on it three days a week, as well as a secondee for six months full-time of lawyers, including 50 NSW and on a rotating basis. In 2010–11 King & Wood Mallesons provided an Victoria law firms and hundreds of additional secondee to work with the NCYLC on the Child Rights NGO barristers. Report, prepared by the Child Rights Taskforce for the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child. Who is a ‘pro bono partner’? In the 2012–13 financial year, Lawmail responded to 934 requests for National Association of Community legal advice from across Australia, with 97% of these clients reporting in Legal Centres (NACLC) defines a ‘pro a client survey that they understood the advice provided and that they bono partner’ as a professional or found it ‘useful’ or ‘very useful’. firm that, as a business, has formally committed to allocating resources and According to NCYLC’s Director, Matthew Keeley, “our partnerships making a contribution to a CLC and/or with KWM, ASIC and Telstra are absolutely fundamental to our Lawmail their clients, free of charge. practice. Approximately 50% of all advices provided nationally are drafted first in a King & Wood Mallesons office somewhere in Australia.” n Pro bono lawyers advise asylum seekers stablished in 1987, the Refugee Advice and Casework Service (RACS) in Sydney provides a comprehensive Especialist legal advice service to asylum seekers and refugees. In 2012–13, RACS assisted over 1500 asylum seekers from a diverse range of countries, many of whom had fled persecution and human rights abuses. RACS seeks to ensure these asylum seekers gain access to equal and fair representation before the law, by providing comprehensive casework assistance, legal advice through face-to-face and telephone appointments, and coordinating referrals to/from other agencies. RACS work has been invaluably supported by a range of pro-bono assistance, including the provision of secondees from King & Wood Mallesons, Allens and Norton Rose Fulbright. For RACS clients refused Protection Visas by the Department of Immigration or at merits review, judicial review provides their last opportunity to seek protection in Australia. Pro-bono partners such as King & Wood Mallesons, Gilbert + Tobin and Allens all provide invaluable pro-bono assistance for RACS clients referred for judicial review. RACS also continues to receive services and in-kind donations from a number of private firms and individuals who provide their services, facilities and/or goods free of charge to RACS. n Solicitor Emma Bathurst from King & Wood Mallesons was a secondee to RACS between February and August 2011. Although she had no particular background in refugee law, Emma had some exposure to immigration cases when previously working with the Federal Court. During her secondment, Emma performed a variety of tasks including preparing Protection Visa applications and statements of claim, accompanying clients to Departmental interviews and representing clients and making submissions at the Refugee Review Tribunal. Emma’s time at RACS included 3-4 weeks on Christmas Island, assisting clients detained there. She also participated in RACS’ wider community work – CLE and supervising evening advice for volunteers. Since returning to King & Wood Mallesons, Emma continues to volunteer at RACS for a couple of hours once or twice a month, at RACS regular Monday night clinics, where she assists asylum seekers to get their claims in order. She also acts as King & Wood Mallesons’ informal contact person with RACS, sometimes working on the judicial review cases taken up by the firm. Emma says that “volunteering for RACS is an invaluable experience. RACS provides an important service to some of the most vulnerable members of our community, assisting them to navigate their way through the complexities of Australia’s immigration system.” 2 WORKING COLLABORATIVELY: COMMUNITY LEGAL CENTRES AND PRO BONO PARTNERSHIPS NACLC 2014 a special pro bono partnership – Peninsula CLC Community Law News December 2013 Issue 8 and russell kennedy Registered No. A8T ABN 23 591 244 622 Tackling Family Violence Head Office eninsula Community Legal Centre (PCLC) has been 441 Nepean Highway Family Violence is a key issue for our centre with parts of our catchment area Frankston Vic 3199 having among the highest rates of family Violence in Victoria. Tel 03 9783 3600 providing free legal services to Melbourne’s outer Fax 03 9770 5200 According to our 2012-13 statistics on problem P Free Call 1800 064 784 types dealt with by our centre, family violence DX 19953 Frankston ranked second highest. A recent report in the Age south-eastern communities since 1977. In addition to Email [email protected] newspaper (28/11) states that: www.pclc.org.au its general services, the Centre operates Family Law, “Record numbers of domestic violence order Bentleigh Branch applications and an all-time high in breaches 82 Brady Road of orders are drowning the Magistrates Court Bentleigh East Vic 3165 Child Support, Family Violence, Tenant and Consumer and family violence services”. Tel 03 9570 8455 Our centre is committed to breaking the silence Cranbourne Branch Advocacy and Rooming House Outreach Programs. The and addressing family violence in Australia. We Bella Centre Suite 12 offer specialist programs in Family Law and provide Centre, one of the largest CLCs in Australia, provided 33-39 High Street much-needed duty lawyer services at the Frankston Cranbourne Vic 3977 Magistrates’ Court and Dandenong Family Law Courts. We are also tackling this issue in partnership Tel 03 5995 3722 more than 7,000 advices to individuals in 2012-13. with other agencies and are currently piloting a Pines Branch range of initiatives with WAYSS, Good Shepherd 2A Candlebark Crescent and Peninsula Community Health aimed at reducing Frankston North Vic 3200 family violence incidents over the Christmas period. Since late 2009 PCLC has had a successful and ongoing Tel 03 9786 6980 • In November we piloted a workshop to a Men’s Behaviour Change Group in Frankston about pro bono partnership with Russell Kennedy, an Rosebud Branch Family Violence Intervention Orders and the 1375 Point Nepean Road consequences of breaches. Feedback was Rosebud Vic 3939 positive and one of the attendees indicted that Proposals for Legislative Reform Consultation Tel 03 5981 2422 the workshop was “tough but necessary”; arrangement which in 2012-13 saw Russell Kennedy Paper (2013). The Department of Justice is Visiting Services to: • We have recently provided a workshop on proposing to abolish defensive homicide in provide PCLC with 241.8 hours of pro bono support, Chelsea tenancy and family violence at a community family violence matters without introducing Hastings worker Family Violence Forum in Hastings; any other partial defence. The submission was • We have also piloted a workshop and provided prepared by the Domestic Violence Resource We gratefully acknowledge . free legal advice at a Ladies Only Morning in Centre Victoria, Monash University, the and in-kind and financial support totalling $67,385.75 the financial assistance of: Commonwealth Hastings.