LawAccess New South Wales is designed as a ‘one stop shop’ providing referral, legal information and self help assistance in New South Wales. It is a joint project of the NSW Ministry of Justice, the NSW Legal Aid Commission and legal profession with the Combined Community Legal Centres and Public Interest Advocacy Centre also represented on its board. LawAccess was initially launched in 2002 and has been developed so that it now has three components:
- a state-wide telephone call centre (with 28 full-time equivalent customer service staff and 12 legal officers with additional team leaders and administrative support: it operates five days a week from 9am to 5pm except for public holidays.In 2011/12, it assisted 195,165 and gave free legal advice to 19,542 customers);
- an information website (LawAcess online); and
- a website designed to help people to represent themselves (LawAssist)
LawAccess NSW is available to all NSW residents but is particularly aimed at people who have difficulty accessing traditional community and government legal services such as people in regional and isolated areas and people with disabilities.
Anyone can get initial information and referral. Customers will be sent relevant leaflets and booklets on their problem. Some callers can receive an initial session of telephone legal advice. Eligibility – at least in theory – is set out in a detailed Policy Standards Manual. In practice, advice may be more freely available but, according to the manual, you should be a ‘priority customer’ (defined by reference to your characteristics, eg disability, or problem (eg, and intriguingly, anyone who ‘intend[s] to commit an offence’). There are various exclusions including complexity of case; availability of alternative assistance and degree of available resources. The service is ‘is particularly focused on helping people who live in regional, rural and remote areas; Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islanders; people who have a disability; people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds; or those who are at risk of harm and have an urgent legal problem’.
LawAccess Online offers ‘plain language legal information including factsheets and guides to help you with your legal issues’. It groups these on its home page in two groups of categories (eg ‘my job’ or ‘employment’). Click on one of these; identify your area of problem a bit more closely; and a further page will present a choice of leaflets produced by third parties, one or more of which may be identified as a ‘best buy’ most likely to meet your need. Thus, LawAccess Online is set up as an ‘aggregator site’ with its content as good as the leaflets and booklets of other organisations chosen by those responsible for it. A test of the housing disrepair advice of six sites around the world is set out separately. LawAccess certainly pointed to helpful advice material.
LawAssist contains information designed to help self-representation which is less dependent on third party sources. It covers six subjects in particular – debt, car accidents, apprehended violence orders, employment, fences and fines. Let me reveal that I am a cyclist and was knocked off my bike by a white van making an illegal right turn. This happened near King’s Cross in London but it could have been King’s Cross, Sydney. White van owners are probably a global phenomenon. Anyway, this gives a personal edge to examining how LawAccess Online would counsel a NSW cyclist seeking some recompense. The opening page has rather a lot of writing on it but ‘car accident’ is very clearly one of the eight further boxes leading on to further information. The next page gives an overview of topics such as ‘what to do after an accident’ and links to the websites of other organisations. I click on ‘what to do’, There is a well laid-out page of information under various headings. This contains some information on next steps eg ‘At the scene of an accident it is important to write down the names and contact details of any witnesses. It is also important to take photos of the place where the accident happened and any damage to your car or the other driver’s car. This may help you if you need to claim the cost of repairs from the other driver or if the other driver makes a claim against you.’
At this point, I have a quibble because it seems to me that anyone in an accident should write down a full statement as soon as possible, preferably at the scene or as soon as they get somewhere with the opportunity. The site does advise on making a statement and it has a pretty comprehensive list of things to put in it but it does not draw attention to this as something to be done immediately. The site takes you from a page on ‘What to do after an accident’ to one entitled ‘getting evidence’ which refers to ‘your notes’ under ‘evidence about fault’ but you need to click again under the heading of ‘evidence about fault’ (not ‘notes’) to get details. The content is absolutely impeccable but its organisation may reflect more the logical process of a lawyer dealing with a claim than the order which occur to a layperson involved in an accident. The point of such detail is not to carp but to draw out the nature of the site. It sets out to provide – and does – a clear statement of law and relevant practice. It does not aspire to the immediacy and interaction of a decision tree in the way that some of the road traffic ‘apps’ do or the question-focused and process-orientated approach of the Dutch Rechtwijzer site.
The combined approach of the call centre and two websites makes it a very good with solid information and comprehensive cover service – probably the best in the world after the Dutch – at what it sets out to do. The service is appreciated by its users. Relevant statistics for 2011/12 were as assisting 195,165 customers; providing 19,542 free legal advice sessions providing 1,760 customers from culturally and linguistically diverse communities with interpreted free legal information and advice through the Translating and Interpreter Service.
Customer satisfaction ratings are high – generally well over 90 per cent (and 97 per cent would recommend it to someone else). Over 70 per cent reported that it increased their confidence in dealing with the problem. An independent study of legal aid in Australia found that, overall, as a source of assistance it was beginning from a low base:
Legal Aid was used in 4.9 per cent of cases, court services were used in 3.5 per cent of cases, and CLCs were used in 1.8 per cent of cases. LawAccess NSW was used in under one per cent of legal problems where advice was sought.
This research suggested that LawAccess needed greater promotion: public recognition of its existence was ‘very low’.
Conclusions
- Intuitively, the LawAccess model, with its integration of a call centre, a general advice website and a specific self help site, seems well designed to meet its aim of being a first point of call, information and referral. In its integrated approach, it is a world leader. As yet, not even the Dutch have such good integration of different channels. Certainly, England and Wales looks fragmented in comparison.
- The LawAccess and LawAssist websites are clear and uncluttered. From my perspective, the next step would be to obtain the level of investment that would allow re-design based on less information per page and more progress through decision trees on the Dutch model.
- The LawAccess system was not designed to – and, accordingly, does not – threaten face to face legal provision: it was designed to make the best use of it and to make appropriate referrals.
- Research within NSW identifies that LawAccess needs more publicity and ‘brand recognition’ even though it produces a creditably large range of promotional postcards, posters, fridge magnets and brochures. That is, in part, presumably a question of time.
