What are the main legal issues dealt with?
The main legal issues dealt with are:
- Family law matters (excluding property settlement matters
- Consumer complaints
- Credit and debt matters
- Social security issues
- Employment law
- Discrimination
- Legal forms and documents
- Criminal matters
- Youth issues
Commerical disputes between businesses, probate, contesting wills, disputes between neighbours, personal injury, workers compensation and Family Law property, maintenance and Personal Violence Orders are generally referred to other solicitors.
Community Legal Education
All Community Legal Centres are required to provide a minimum of community legal education. What this entails is that solicitors from each service provides broad legal information to the community. This is usually delivered through seminars and lectures with local community groups. These lectures usually cover such topics as credit issues, family law, traffic law and public interest topics like human rights.
North & North West Community Legal Service also, uniquely, host an hour long weekly radio program on 2ARM, a local radio station. The Service uses this program as a vessel to broadcast thier legal education lectures to a listener base of up to 30,000 people. The program has also been fortunate to host talks and interviews with several members of the local community services and legal services.
The Service also participates in the Traffic Offenders Intervention Program through the Armidale PCYC, providing legal information as part of the programs curriculum.
Outreach Programs
North & North West Community Legal Service also provides an outreach service. What this means is that solicitors from the Service in Armidale will travel local towns to provide face to face legal advice and to give legal education.
The out reach service currently visits the following towns:
- Glen Innes
- Inverell
- Tenterfield
- Walcha
- Guyra
- Narrabri
- Gunnedah
- Barraba
- Bingara
- Moree
The towns visited in the outreach service are visited on a monthly basis, except for Tamworth which is visited fortnightly and Moree which is visited every second month. Our solicitors travel up to 300kms a day and the service covers over 98,000 square kilometres which contitutes about 12% of the state of NSW.
In addition to our face to face outreach service, our solicitors can provide legal advice over the phone to anyone within the area of the Service's auspices. The area our service covers is bounded by the Queensland Border to the North between the towns of Goondiwindi and Tenterfield. Our Service covers as far west as Moree and Narrabri, as far South as Quirindi and as far West as Armidale and Glen Innes.
Communitly Legal Centres Generally
Community Legal Centres work for the public interest, particularly for disadvantaged and marginalised people and communities. We promote human rights, social justice, and a better environment by advocating for access to justice and equitable laws and legal systems, and through the provision of legal services including strategic case work, community legal education and law reform campaigns.
A community legal centre consists of staff including solicitors, social workers and community legal educators. We also have volunteer solicitors, barristers, law students and others working with us to extend our legal services.
There are 39 Community Legal Centre (both generalist and specialist centres) in New South Wales and 207 in Australia.
The NSW State Association Website - http://www.nswclc.org.au/
The National Association Website - http://www.naclc.org.au/
Community Legal Centres are independent, non-profit organisations, which establish their own goals and priorities in response to the legal and related needs of the communities they serve.