Annual Report 2007 
Our Work
The Legal Aid Commission provides legal services to the Tasmanian community through grants of legal aid, free legal advice and minor assistance, duty solicitor services, and community education and information.
During the year the Commission received 7,848 applications for legal assistance. Of those, 5,648 were for criminal matters and 2,167 were for family matters - 504 more for criminal matters than the previous year, but 136 less for family matters. The overall figures maintain us at the level of three years ago, but the mix has altered. These differences were reflected in the figures for applications approved. For criminal law matters we approved 5,028 - 772 more than the previous year, but for family law matters, we approved 1,714 - 29 less than the previous year.
In applications for civil matters, given that for most of the year the applications reflected the decision the Commission had previously taken to not take on any new state civil cases, we received only 33 applications, of which 17 were approved. In the second half of the year, the Commission agreed to accept applications for a limited range of civil matters and several of the applications were a result of this change. In spite of this, the figures are very similar to the previous year when 31 applications were received and 13 were approved. Most of these matters were Commonwealth matters.
For criminal matters, 53% (2,647) were assigned to members of the private profession and 47% (2,344) to the in-house practice. For family law matters, 38% (649) went to the in-house practice, with 62% (1,063) going to the private profession. For civil matters, 88% were assigned to members of the private profession and 12% to the in-house practice.
These figures cover our representation activity, based on grants of aid.
During the year, our FDR program conducted 339 conferences. We hold these conferences at locations across the State, using a mixture of in-house and private practitioner chairpersons. The number this year is almost identical with the number last year. Our successful/partially successful rate was 90%. We consistently achieve a rate of this order.
Our duty lawyer service operates in the Magistrates Courts. In-house practitioners attend the Court, and are available to give legal advice to people before they appear in Court, or to handle simple representation. Each instance is recorded as a duty lawyer session, and during the year our duty lawyers provided 4,813 sessions. This is a slight decrease from last year, when we did 4,849 sessions.
Our new Family Law duty lawyer service, under the special program funded by the Commonwealth which began in March 2005, has continued at roughly the same level of activity this year. The program offers special but limited assistance to unrepresented litigants in the Family Court and the Federal Magistrates Court. During the year, we provided 171 duty lawyer services in Hobart, and 74 in Launceston/Devonport, the three locations where those Courts sit.
In addition to representation and Court based duty lawyer sessions, our in-house lawyers provide free face-to-face legal advice to people who attend our clinic sessions. Clinics are held at least several times a week at each of our four offices. All legal advice is provided by professional legal staff who, in the course of giving advice, are able to look at any document the client produces, advise on the appropriate course of action, including how to make an application for legal aid, and provide minor assistance such as writing a letter. In addition to general advice services, our officers also offer expert advice in child support. During the year we saw 7,022 people and gave them face-to-face advice, and arranged a further 61 sessions given by referred private lawyers.
These numbers include our Supreme Court Advice Clinics in Hobart on civil matters. The scheme seeks to provide civil advice to clients who would not normally be eligible for Legal Aid or have access to Clinic. The service aims to provide advice on civil process and procedure, not legal advice.
We aim to ensure that all Tasmanians, no matter where they live and regardless of means, have ready access to legal information and advice through our statewide program of telephone advice.
For the cost of a local call any Tasmanian can access our service and obtain prompt legal advice or information from a lawyer. There were 25,157 calls dealt with by the service during 2006/2007 compared to 24,744 the previous year. The telephone service consistently achieves figures of this size.
The presentation of seminars and workshops continues to be one of our most important activities in increasing community awareness about the law. Our outreach seminars and workshops have been delivered to a range of audiences such as students, migrant groups, workers and retirees, on varied topics such as employment law, negligence and family law. As part of an ongoing program, our community awareness activities have also been supplemented by specialised Child Support presentations. During the year the Commission provided 139 workshops and seminars.
During the past year we have continued to make available a range of publications (pamphlets, posters and fact sheets) to increase public access to services. These publications are available on our internet site, and are producible on demand.