Private practitioners are central to the ongoing delivery of legal assistance services in this country. But they are reaching breaking point as they strive to ensure access to justice for all, prompting the Law Council of Australia to call for additional funding in this year's Federal Budget.
"The Australian legal aid system operates under a 'mixed model' of service delivery where Legal Aid Commissions (LACs) brief out matters to members of the private legal profession at significantly reduced rates," Law Council of Australia President, Ms Juliana Warner explained.
"This allows LACs to draw on the in-house expertise, experience, acumen and geographic reach of the private profession.
"According to the recent 2024 Justice on the Brink Report commissioned by National Legal Aid, 72 per cent of legal aid approved matters are assigned to private practitioners. This is despite those practitioners receiving appallingly low rates of compensation for this difficult and complex work.
"However, it is becoming increasingly unviable for the private profession to offer support to legal aid clients, especially in rural and remote communities, under current conditions. This leaves many individuals without the legal help they require to navigate complex legal systems such as family law disputes.
"In our recently released Pre-Budget Submission, the Law Council is once again calling for implementation of a key recommendation of Dr Warren Mundy's report on the National Legal Assistance Partnership: for the Commonwealth to provide funding that enables legal aid rates to private practitioners to be aligned with court scales.
Data provided to the Law Council indicates that across a range of family law property and parenting disputes, payments received from LACs are consistently just 25–30 per cent of what would otherwise have been received had the same matter been taken on privately.
"When you combine this with the huge rates of pro bono work undertaken by our profession, lawyers are stretched across the board," Ms Warner said.
According to the 8th National Law Firm Pro Bono Survey, released in 2022, participating law firms undertook the highest number of average pro bono hours per lawyer on record.
"Lawyers have demonstrated their commitment to access to justice, but they cannot do it alone," Ms Warner said. "The Law Council continues to call on governments to do their bit to ensure delivery of essential legal services by providing adequate funding."
