| Area | Strategies/ Activities (responsibility) | Targets |
| 1. Meeting Community Need | 1.1 Aboriginal people | Formally evaluate the Guide to Legal Services for Aboriginal People in NSW/ACT with the aim of maximising its effectiveness (Working Group on civil law services for Aboriginal people) | Evaluation report completed and presented to NLAF at the August 2008 meeting |
| Conduct and evaluate an Aboriginal civil law access project in the Northern Rivers region of NSW. The project will aim to develop a model process for identifying and addressing civil law need in partnership with an Aboriginal community, with a high level of collaboration between agencies and building on existing legal infrastructure (Working Group on civil law services for Aboriginal people) | Preliminary report outlining outcomes of consultations and a new proposal for funding the civil law response to the November 2008 meeting
Final report documenting the process and evaluation outcomes to the February 2009 meeting |
| 1.2 Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Communities | Develop a proposal for reform of access to interpreters for clients of community legal centres (NLAF Executive) | A proposal presented to August 2008 meeting |
| Establish a working group to identify areas where NLAF could improve collaboration and cooperation in addressing the legal needs of CALD communities (LawAccess as lead agency) | A small interim CALD working group established to scope NLAF’s role and report to the May 2008 meeting |
| 1.4 Rural and regional communities | Consider research into the causes and possible solutions of access to public assistance lawyers in rural and regional NSW (NLAF main forum) | Review the findings of stage 1 of research being conducted by Northern Rivers Community Legal Centre into the decline of lawyer numbers in rural NSW at the August 2008 meeting |
| Encourage NSW Law Deans to promote careers for young lawyers in public legal assistance agencies in rural and remote NSW (NLAF Executive) | Establish a dialogue with NSW Law Deans and report back to the August 2008 meeting |
| 1.5 Older people | Establish a working group on the legal needs of older people to respond to the recommendations of the Federal inquiry into Older people and the Law, and to support new legal service initiatives for older people (Legal Aid as lead agency) | Final report of the working group presented to the November 2008 meeting |
| 2. Policy/ Law Reform | 2.1 Conflict of interest
| Address the barriers to access to advice and representation caused by the application of legal professional conflict of interest and duty rules in public legal assistance agencies (Working Group on conflict of interest) | Progress NLAF’s submission seeking change to the Law Society’s Professional Conduct Rules in tandem with Legal Aid’s work on conflict of interest and information barriers. Report to the August 2008 meeting |
| 3. Coordination of Legal Assistance | 3.1 Family law | Identify gaps in service delivery for family law assistance and improve collaboration across NSW agencies to address these gaps (NLAF project manager and main forum) | Family law assistance gap analysis presented to May 2008 meeting |
