Highlights of NLAF Meeting held on 28 February 2007

Meeting Community Need

Legal Services to Aboriginal People

A key focus of the Working Group is to improve access to civil law services particularly in rural regional and remote (RRR) areas and there is a smaller discussion group scoping ideas for a pilot project. Other areas of interest are pro-bono ASSISTANCE and family violence

Interpreting Services

NLAF representatives and Community Relations Commission (CRC) met to establish a collaborative approach to deliver interpreters services. Initially the focus is on:

Working Group on Mental Illness and Access to Justice

This Working group will focus on broad legal and policy issues that affect the services to people with mental health problems. This includes better resources for advocates, targeted services and better co-ordination between health and legal services. The group has met with the Deputy-Director for General Strategic Development for NSW Health

Chamber Registrars’ Services

A review of standards of services is on-going. In addition there are proposals for a re-structure of certain areas of responsibilities. The posts of Zone Manager will be replaced with Senior Registrar posts in seven locations: Newcastle, Dubbo, Wollongong, Parramatta, Wagga Wagga, Lismore and the (Sydney) Downing Centre. These new positions will have responsibility for the local home court and an overview over certain regional courts.

Policy / Law reform

Courts 2010 programme

The programme is a systemic gathering of information and of programme development to modernise the Courts institutions by the year 2010.

There are three project teams that are heading up in the programme: these represent the channels of access to court services: online services and their extension, face-to-face (including outreach/regional services/ audio visual links), and central processing services. Other teams are also working on other areas including client services, simpler products and improving internal processes.

Working Group on Conflict of Interest

The Group has made a submission to the NSW Law Society with the intention of improving access to public legal assistance advice for people who are affected by the rules relating to conflict of interest situations.

Co-Ordination of legal assistance

Legal Services Training Reference Group
(Report circulated)

The group continues to focus on its key roles of networking and information co-ordination, particularly in relation to sourcing training resources for workers. Identified areas of need include mental health law and awareness, conflict of interest and training in RRR areas.

Legal Services in RRR areas

will be improved by an increase in the number of solicitors in RRR areas who will work on Legal Aid cases in the Regional Solicitor Program which is a joint initiative of the LAC and Law Society.