Pleased to Meet You: Calling upon Law students to Help Meet
Unmet Legal Need
By Rachel Hew
Domestic violence: an area of unmet legal need
Government funding for the legal assistance sector, including domestic violence community legal
centres, has become increasingly stringent over the past several years. Victorian barrister, David Neal
SC, highlighted that federal funding for legal assistance was $10.50 per capita in 1997, yet the 2016
budget will allow merely $7.50 per capita in 2019. Whilst debate rumbles on in the media and in
Parliament, the number of victims of domestic violence who require legal assistance looms larger.
It is 2016, and police in Australia are dealing with a domestic violence matter every two minutes.2 In
Queensland alone there are on average 180 reports of domestic violence incidents every day.3
Domestic violence centres and hotlines are experiencing a drastic increase in clients needing
assistance, with one centre in NSW estimating a tenfold increase in referrals in the last 12 months.4
These domestic violence centres threaten closure if they do not receive funding to keep paying staff,
as there is simply not enough people power to attend to the number ofrequests for help. For example,
Jane Gold, manager of Penrith Women's Health Centre manager said that without $100,000 in
funding she will be unable to retain the service's only domestic violence case manager past June of
this year.5
This is where lawyers and law firms might be able to help. Increasingly, Australian law firms have an
established pro Bono group to honour the professional responsibility of a lawyer to do work pro bono
publico. Studies show that lawyers are inherently motivated to do pro bono work for reasons beyond a
sense of professional obligation. However considering that at many firms, lawyers count their pro
Bono contributions towards any billable hour targets, it would be disingenuous to deny that it is vital
that hours lawyers do spend on pro Bono matters are useful and productive.
Bright young things
C
Fortunately there exists a pool of literally thousands of bright, enthusiastic young people who happen
to be lawyers in training, hungry for experience and willing to jump at an opportunity to volunteer
their time. They are Australian law students.
If there is one thing known about Australian law schools by virtue ofrecent media attention, it is that
they have students en masse. These students are aware of the dire state of the job market they will
face upon graduating, and they are more eager than ever before to get genuine, hands on legal
1 Jane Lee, Budget 2016.• Lawyers to rally over legal aid shortfall <http://www.smh.com.au/business/federalbudget/budget-2016-lawyers-to-rally-over-legal-aid-shortfall-20160502-gojwhj.html> Sydney Morning Herald
2 May 2016.
2 Clare Blumer,Police handle S,000 domestic violence matters a week, up 7per cent
<http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-22/domestic-violence-data/7342520> ABC News 22 Apri12016.
3 Kim Agius, Domestic violence rising in Queensland according to new report
<http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-02-28/domestic-violence-report-handed-down/6271208> ABC News 6 April
2015.
4 Isabel Petrinic Domestic violence services desperatefor morefundingfor key resources necessary to help
victims <http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/newslocal/west/servicesoverloaded-by-cries-for-help-from-women-in-need/news-story/02b0e788e570d811cf86d23bf~240ef8> Penrith
Press 23 May 2016.
5 Ibid.
1~Page
experience early on in their degree. Thanks to the implementation of elective courses where students
work in community legal centres, students are also becoming increasingly aware of the importance of
pro bono work in any lawyer's career.
At present the University of Queensland Pro Bono Centre(UQPBC)is the only dedicated pro Bono
centre amongst Australian law schools, where students are offered an established portal through
which to get hands on pro Bono experience. However, initiatives such as community legal clinics exist
at several law schools and it is proposed that the UQPBC could serve as a model for other law schools
to replicate.
Centres such as the UQPBC take "briefs" from law firms that take on pro bono matters, in order to
understand the nature of the pro bono work and how many and what type of students are required. The
Centre will then advertise amongst the registry of students who are signed up to the Centre and accept
applications. The "best" students are selected from the applicants, and the Centre then links the firm
with the students. The best students will be those who most closely match the criteria set out by the
firm: this might be a GPA over a certain number, but ordinarily will be students with demonstrated
interest and experience in the relevant area such as assisting domestic violence victims.
Less funding for domestic violence centres means less money to pay staff. If students could be
recruited in addition to lawyers from firms, this could be a solution to the lack of people power. These
centres could contact lawyers and law firms with what and how many people they need, and then
firms could liaise with law schools to recruit students to volunteer to assist.
If the brief from the centre requires research, students can work from the university library or from
home, meaning law firms need not provide physical supervision, and can send through their work to
firms electronically. Throughout the period of the relationship between the firm and the selected
students, the Centre will oversee the progress of the work and can assign a university academic to
provide students with guidance if the task is academic or research based. This alleviates pressure from
firms to provide staff to supervise, and in essence means that the work students are producing is
consistently at a high standard. The firms can then use the work as a basis for formulating its legal
advice, with much of the ground work having been done at no time or monetary expense to the firm.
Law students have access to the sophisticated and wide-ranging research databases through their
university enrolment, and up-to date, finely-tuned research skills.
C
If centres need people to come physically to the centre and provide legal advice in person, students
are happy to dedicate one to two days a week to attend. Students are well able to do the ground work
(answering the calls, taking down the facts, organising meetings with lawyers) and then the lawyer
could be utilised by the centre more usefully and meaningfully. This kind of work would be akin to
what students already do when volunteering pro bono. From a practical perspective, university
students who undertake pro bono work either at home, on campus or at a law firm or legal centre are
covered by university insurance for volunteers, meaning this would not be an issue for firms.
A win-win-win
This solution provides a trifecta of positive outcomes. Pairing lawyers with a complement of able
students would mean that less lawyers would need to be allocated to each domestic violence centre,
meaning that the lawyers could be spread across a greater range of centres, increasing reach of
assistance. This means there is a greater chance of the void of unmet legal need in domestic violence
being filled. Furthermore, such a relationship provides the firm with an opportunity to form a
relationship with what could be its future employed graduates, and students have had a chance to gain
experience to put on their CV whilst experiencing firsthand the satisfaction of helping those with legal
needs.
2~Page