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» Community partnerships » Pro Bono - Community Partnerships
Clayton Utz solicitors attend a number of external legal clinics across Australia, including in:
We have provided secondments to:
Through the Clayton Utz Foundation Fellowship, we have funded lawyers as Clayton Utz Fellows at regional community legal centres, for two years at a time, at:
Our Pro Bono practice is focussed on disadvantage - acting for people who are disadvantaged and for the community groups and charities which support them. Below are a few current examples of our Pro Bono community partnerships.
Kimberley Community Legal Services
KCLS in Kununurra provides legal services to clients across the entire Kimberley region, including many remote Aboriginal communities. Around 95 percent of KCLS' clients are Indigenous. KCLS provides legal assistance in areas such as Criminal Injuries Compensation Claims, Violence Restraining Orders, employment law matters, family law matters, moral claims on deceased estates, law reform work and Community Legal Education presentations.
Much of the work performed involves outreach services to remote communities including Kalumburu, Warmun, Balgo, Fitzroy Crossing and Oombulgurri.
For many people living in remote communities across the Kimberley, KCLS is the only means by which they can access legal advice. We have seconded lawyers to KCLS since 2005, doubling the number of lawyers at the Centre. Clayton Utz secondees have enabled KCLS to increase its services to disadvantaged remote communities and take on a greater caseload.
"Following my recent visit to Kununurra to open a new Legal Aid office, I would like to acknowledge the positive contribution Clayton Utz makes to the East Kimberley region through the provision of a regular secondment to Kimberley Community Legal Services. Clayton Utz provides a range of valuable pro bono services across Australia. Having now visited Kununurra, it is clear this assistance provided to Kimberley Community Legal Services is invaluable and makes a real difference to improving access to justice." Letter from Robert McClelland, Commonwealth Attorney-General
LawHelp
Clayton Utz is part of the LawHelp service coordinated by the Office of the Registrar of Indigenous Corporations, which provides pro bono assistance to corporations registered under the Corporations (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander) Act 2006. Our work has involved not-for-profit corporations in regional and remote Australia.
Clayton Utz / Legal Aid WA Regional Pro Bono Outreach Program
Clayton Utz and Legal Aid WA are working together to improve access to pro bono legal services in regional WA. Under the Outreach Program, our lawyers accompany Legal Aid's lawyers on circuit for up to a week, to provide advice to clients on a range of matters including employment law, contractual disputes, tenancy disputes, and to also assist the Legal Aid duty lawyer with matters before the Magistrates Court.
Regions visited under the Outreach Program include the East Kimberley and the Pilbara.
Sexual Assault Communications Privilege
A two-year Pro Bono project by Clayton Utz, Women's Legal Services NSW and firms Blake Dawson and Freehills, in conjunction with the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, resulted in legislative reforms in December 2010 to protect the rights of victims of sexual assaults during the criminal trial process.
Sexual Assault Communications Privilege ("SACP") prevents defendants in criminal trials from being able to trawl through a victim's confidential counselling records. The policy behind SACP is to protect the confidentiality of sexual assault counselling, so as to encourage sexual assault victims to seek and stay in counselling, and to make victims feel more confident about being able to report sexual assaults. The legislative reforms ensure that the victim is made aware of her or his right to oppose the production of their counselling records in Court, and that the Court recognises SACP as an essential element in the criminal trial process.
Until our project, most victims had no knowledge of their SACP rights, and no capacity to enforce those rights before the Court. From February 2009, Clayton Utz, Blake Dawson, Freehills and Women's Legal Services NSW represented more than 90 victims of sexual assault on a pro bono basis before the District and Local Courts. The experiences of the Project informed the amendments which have now been made to the Criminal Procedure Act.
The Project demonstrated that legal representation for victims makes a significant difference in preventing the disclosure of privileged documents. In 91% of cases where documents returned under subpoena contained protected confidences, the complainant was able to assert Privilege successfully.
A pro bono model is not a long-term solution to providing a comprehensive and sustainable service to the hundreds of victims of sexual assault before NSW Courts each year. The Project partners welcomed the announcement by the Attorney General of $4.4million of funding over 4 years for a specialist victims' advocacy service, which will ensure that victims can receive advice and representation in asserting SACP.
David Hillard, Pro Bono Partner at Clayton Utz said in December 2010 on behalf of the SACP Project partners, "these reforms have been secured through the perfect example of a pro bono project - an identified legal access problem has been tackled collaboratively, reformed through legislation, and with the State now picking up responsibility for future representation of victims. Our organisations started this project to highlight why SACP was not working properly, to get those problems fixed, and to ensure that government-funded services were available for victims to assert their rights. It is so pleasing to see collaboration between private lawyers working pro bono, the community legal sector and the DPP, bring real change to this issue".
Legal assistance for people with cancer
We are part of the Cancer Council Legal Referral Service, which provides pro bono help for people with cancer and their carers across NSW. We have assisted clients with issues around employment, mortgage payments, accessing early superannuation, and guardianship.
The Aboriginal Credit & Debt Clinic
This travelling clinic with the wonderful acronym "ACDC", is a joint project of the Public Interest Law Clearing House (Vic) and the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service. ACDC provides free legal advice and information on credit and debt matters to Aboriginal people in regional and rural Victoria, including to people in prison.
Clayton Utz has been part of the ACDC since it began in 2010. Our lawyers travel to staff day-long clinics in regional towns, alongside other service providers including financial counsellors, Centrelink staff and Consumer Affairs Victoria. We have assisted with a range of issues including difficulties with debt collectors; mobile phone, gas, electricity and water bills; parking and public transport fines; and debts to pay day lenders.
