Law Access NSW Telephone Legal Service

LawAccess NSW has a free telephone service for people who need legal information, assistance, advice and referrals. They also have offer legal advice by telephone for priority clients. These services may be helpful for those persistent few who want you to solve all their problems for them and make you feel guilty when you say you can help them no further.

LawAccess can be contacted on 1300 888 529 or if the customer requires the assistance of an interpreter, by contacting the Translating and Interpreting Service (TIS) on 131 450 and asking to speak to LawAccess on 1300 888 529. We operate Monday to Friday (excluding public holidays) between 9am and 5pm.

The LawAccess web site is listed on our Legal Information page but here is some more information about the service:

A recent study of the Law and Justice Foundation of NSW into the access to justice and legal needs of disadvantaged people in NSW found that the most common response by people to a legal problem is to do nothing about it. The study found that 'Most people who have legal problems do not go straight to a lawyer for help. If they do seek help at all, they tend to turn to non-legal sources, such as friends, government agencies, welfare agencies and other professionals such as teachers and doctors'. The study also found that even though friends, support workers and the like may refer people to an organisation for legal assistance, more often than not it turns out to be an inappropriate service for the person's particular legal problem. The person may be referred again to another service which may also be in appropriate. The study found that people will give up if they are not referred to the appropriate service the first time round and what is called 'referral fatigue' sets in.

The study recommended that LawAccess NSW raise awareness of its service to non-legal service providers to raise the level of awareness of its service recognising that non-legal service providers and support workers can play a valuable role in assisting people to find legal help.

LawAccess NSW is part of the Attorney General's Department of NSW and was established in 2001 as a joint initative of the Attorney General's Department, Legal Aid NSW, Law Society of NSW and the NSW Bar Assocation. LawAccess works very closely with its partners including Legal Aid and the Community Legal Centres of NSW.

LawAccess NSW is a free Statewide telephone service for people who need legal information, assistance, advice and referrals. When a customer calls LawAccess NSW they will speak to a Customer Service Officer (CSO). The CSOs are not lawyers but are trained to assess the customers problem and the best way to assist them with that problem. It may be enough for people to receive general legal information from the CSOs and they have a range of legal resources to provide that information. They can follow up the call by sending out plain english information in the mail. For people able to self help, they can refer people to a website and navigate the customer to the relevant page of that website.

After listening to the Customer, the CSO may assess that the person needs further assistance such as face to face legal advice or referral to a specialist community legal centre for example, for customers who have credit card or experiencing mortgage stress may be referred to the Consumer Credit Legal Centre. People may be referred to a range of services dealing with, for example, domestic violence, tenancy issues, issues for older persons, and Legal Aid.

The CSO's try to refer to people to free legal assistance services however where there are no free legal assistance services for the particular problem or a customer may not meet a means test, the CSOs can assist the person to find a private lawyer through the Law Society's solicitor referral scheme. The CSO can send the customer's details to the Law Society who will send the customer the contact details for three lawyers who are in the customer's area and who deal with the particular issue. They can also indicate if the lawyer speaks languages other than English.

The other service provided by LawAccess is to give telephone legal advice by one its lawyers. The CSO will assess whether the customers problem is suitable for telephone legal advice. This service is available to our 'priority clients' who include: people living in regional, rural and remote areas of NSW; Aboriginal people; people from a CALD background; people with a disability; people who have an urgent problem and where there is a person at risk of harm. The lawyers are able to give telephone legal advice in family law, civil law and criminal law. We cannot provide advice on immigration law. As the nature of the service is by telephone only, the lawyers are not able to represent people in court for example.

If you would like further information or have any feedback about our service please do not hesitate to contact Wendy Elder, Project Manager - regional outreach Telephone: 8833 3164 or Email: wendy_elder (at) agd (dot) nsw (dot) gov (dot) au.