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About the Legal Aid Commission of NSW who are we? | what is our role? | what are our goals? | how are we funded? | what we do | our programs | some statistics | Legal Aid policies in brief | where to find us | Legal Aid Annual Report 2000-2001 Who Are We? 
The NSW Legal Aid Commission is established under the Legal Aid Commission Act 1979 of New South Wales and is an independent statutory body. We provide legal aid and other legal services to disadvantaged people. Ten Board Members, appointed by the NSW Attorney General, govern the Commission and determine its policies and strategic direction. The Board represents a range of key groups including the Law Society of NSW, welfare groups and the Bar Association of NSW. What Is Our Role? Our purpose is to assist socially and economically disadvantaged people to understand and protect their rights. One of the functions of the legal system is to safeguard people’s rights. The legal system can only perform this protective role if people have equitable access to it. The justice system is not accessible to everybody. Financially disadvantaged people, disabled people, people from non-English speaking backgrounds, women, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, and those who are institutionalised experience difficulties when enforcing their rights and defending claims against them. Legal Aid plays a special role in improving access to justice by providing a range of legal service to these groups. We work in partnership with private lawyers who represented nearly half of all legally aided people in case matters in NSW during 1999-2000. What Are Our Goals? Our mission is to assist disadvantaged people to understand and protect and enforce their legal rights and interests by promoting access to the justice system and encouraging the use of alternative dispute resolution. The goals defined in our 1999-2002 Corporate Plan are to:
How Are We Funded? The Commission receives its income mainly from the Commonwealth and NSW Governments, the Public Purpose Fund and its clients. Combined income for 1999-2000 was $96.428m. The Commission undertakes work for the Commonwealth on the basis of a three-year agency agreement. This agreement expired on 30 June 2000 and the Commission has now negotiated a new four-year agreement that increases our funding by $26.186m. What We Do We provide free legal advice and minor assistance at our head office in Sydney as well as at 18 regional offices, numerous advice clinics located in various metropolitan and country centres and specialist services. In 1999-2000 we provided 274,276 client services including representation, legal advice, legal HelpLine information and special children's and youth services. Easy access to information and referral about legal aid and related services is available toll free from our Legal Aid HelpLine (1800 806 913). If more than legal advice is needed, we may be able to provide legal representation. We provide grants of legal aid for many civil, family, criminal, administrative law, mental health and veteran’s matters. For most services clients must meet our means and merit tests. Also they usually have to pay some money towards the cost of their case. In some cases clients repay the full cost of their case when it is finalised. Our Programs We provide other services that aim to avoid court disputes such as alternative dispute resolution and community legal education programs. We also administer funding for Community Legal Centres to provide legal representation and advice across NSW as well as Domestic Violence Court Assistance Schemes at many Local Courts. Some Statistics The information below is taken from data collected during the1999/2000 financial year. See our Legal Aid Annual Report 2000-2001
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