By Juliana Warner, Law Council of Australia President
Availability of legal services varies across the country. Where someone lives, their postcode, may impact on a person’s ability to access justice.
If you were to pull up a map of Western Australia based on rurality, much of the state would be categorised as very remote or remote. According to the latest National Profile of Solicitors, around three per cent of solicitors practising in the state are located in a rural area.
While around one third of Australians live outside our capital cities, the ratio of lawyers falls well below this.
This workforce shortfall adversely impacts access to justice for people who live in these under-serviced regions.
It can be very difficult for individuals in rural, regional and remote (RRR) areas to access timely legal assistance on issues ranging from criminal law matters, family law, child protection, tenancy matters, social security matters, credit and debt, and wills and estates.
In addition, shortages of private legal practitioners in RRR areas limits availability of legal aid and pro bono assistance in these locations. It is critical to recognise that, as the private legal profession takes on approximately 72 per cent of approved legal aid cases, there is an ever-increasing threat of supply failure in RRR areas.
Addressing this issue is a priority for the Law Council of Australia. Since mid-2022, our RRR Committee has examined various options to directly incentivise legal practitioners to relocate to RRR areas and stay for a longer period of time, to build trusted connections with the community, assist with the supervision of junior lawyers, and to facilitate succession planning.
In 2023, the Law Council released a position paper proposing the Commonwealth provide financial incentives to increase the number of lawyers living and working in regional, rural and remote (RRR) locations, through the introduction of a Higher Education Loan Program (HELP) debt reduction and indexation relief initiative.
Under this scheme, qualified lawyers who live and work in eligible RRR areas will be able to apply for a reduction of their outstanding HELP debt after working in that area for a requisite period. The scheme would also waive indexation on a practitioner’s HELP debt during that time.
Since it made this proposal, representatives of the Law Council have been meeting with Members of Parliament across all parties to advocate for this change.
Rebuilding regional legal communities will be the topic of discussion of a session at the upcoming National Access to Justice and Pro Bono Conference. This will be just one of the many important issues explored during the Conference and I encourage anyone interested in improving access to justice in Australia to join us in Melbourne from 29-31 October.
