The Commonwealth has just released their annual legal services expenditure report for 2016-2017 reporting total legal services expenditure of $825.51m (up 4.2%), and 502,619 hours of pro bono legal work done by reporting firms (down 9.5% on 2015-16 results).
The Commonwealth Government’s Legal Services Multi-Use List (LSMUL) of firms authorised to provide legal services to the Commonwealth ceased on 1 July 2018 and with it some of the conditions that formally encouraged firms to undertake pro bono legal work.
The “ground breaking” Improving Educational Outcomes for Children with Disability in Victoria report was launched last Friday. Here’s how pro bono legal assistance from law firm Colin Biggers & Paisley contributed to this important work.
Senior Australians are set to benefit from the 2018 Federal Budget, with $22 million dedicated towards protecting them from elder abuse and the official launch of new national peak body, Elder Abuse Action Australia. In this article, we give you the run-down on the new measures and highlight where pro bono legal work can make a meaningful contribution to improving access to justice in this space.
The Victorian Government has expressed support for nearly all of recommendations from the Victorian Access to Justice Review (the Review), commissioned by the Victorian Labor Government in 2015 and undertaken by the Department of Justice and Regulation.
In July 2016, the New South Wales (NSW) Government included pro bono conditions in its new whole-of-government NSW Legal Services Panel arrangements. Firms will in July 2017 for the first time be reporting on their pro bono work in NSW – a direct result of these new NSW tender rules.