Legal Assistance Services methodology

The Legal Assistance Services publication presents experimental data about legal assistance services funded through the National Legal Assistance Partnership Agreement (2020-2025) (NLAP) that were completed by Legal Aid Commissions (LACs), Community Legal Centres (CLCs) and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services (ATSILSs) (the sector) across Australia during the period 1 July 2022 to 30 June 2023. 

The publication includes information about services, including service type, law type and problem type; and selected demographic information about clients who received these services, including age, gender, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander status.

Given inherent differences that exist across the sector in relation to the types of services provided and target client groups, data in this publication are presented separately for the LACs, CLCs and ATSILSs. Comparisons of data for the three service provider types should be avoided. These differences are described further under Services provided across the sector.

These statistics do not provide a measure of the full extent of resources or effort expended in the delivery of legal assistance services by the sector; nor do they reflect the unmet legal need of people across Australia. Rather, they lay the foundations for establishing a reliable and comparable national evidence base that can be developed and enhanced overtime to inform service planning and delivery.

Whilst the selected statistics presented in this first national release are suitable for publication, they are deemed by the ABS to be experimental due to data quality and comparability issues that exist across the sector. Users of these data should exercise caution in interpreting and drawing conclusions based on these results. For more information, refer to About this release, individual chapters and the explanatory notes presented throughout this methodology.   

The experimental statistics presented in this publication are based on administrative by-product data maintained by the LACs, ATSILSs and CLCs in each state and territory. The data were provided to the ABS on behalf of the Commonwealth Attorney-General’s Department (AGD), as per the data reporting requirements specified in Schedule D of the National Legal Assistance Partnership 2020-25 (NLAP). The NLAP is a national partnership agreement between the Australian Government and all states and territories for Australian Government funded legal assistance.

To ensure consistency between states and territories, data have been compiled largely in accordance with the national standards and classifications specified in the AGD’s National Legal Assistance Data Standards Manual (the DSM) and/or Schedule D of NLAP.  Both the DSM and NLAP are currently under review and are therefore subject to change. This may impact on the comparability and/or availability of the statistics in future releases of this publication. 

The publication presents data about services completed, by the LACs, ATSILSs and CLCs across Australia, during the reference period of 1 July 2022 to 30 June 2023.  

Under the NLAP, the sector is required to report on the following service types (where they were provided using Commonwealth NLAP funding):

• Legal advice
• Legal task
• Non-legal support
• Facilitated resolution processes
• Ongoing legal support
• Duty lawyer
• Representations (including court/tribunal, dispute resolution, and ‘other’ representation). 

Excluded from the NLAP reporting requirements are:

• Services not funded under NLAP
• Information and referral services
• Services for the community, including community legal education, community education, law and legal service reform and stakeholder engagement.

For the purposes of this publication, the scope of services is limited to those completed during the reference period 1 July 2022 to 30 June 2023.

Included: 

• Services that were opened prior to, or during, the reference period. 

Excluded:

• Services that remained open/incomplete after 30 June 2023.

The coverage of services presented varies across jurisdictions and the sector due to various factors including (but not limited to) differences in: 

• Service models adopted across agencies
• Business processes, priorities, and use of resources
• Data administrative systems used to record/report on data (for which limitations may vary).

As such, caution should be used when interpreting these data. For more information refer to: Services provided across the sector and Data Quality and Comparability.

This publication presents data about two main populations: clients and services.

Clients

A client is defined as a person, group or organisation who received one or more legal services that were completed during the reference period.

Clients vary in terms of the nature and complexity of their legal problems and the number and types of legal assistance services they receive. 

Clients can receive a legal assistance service as either the victim/applicant or the alleged perpetrator/respondent in any given legal matter. The data in this publication does not differentiate between these client types. This should be taken into consideration when interpreting these statistics. 

Services

A service is the formal provision of legal assistance (to a client), completed within the reference period. 

Services vary considerably dependant on a client’s needs and their associated legal problems. They range from the relatively quick and simple (e.g. involving one legal problem assisted with a single legal advice); to the more complex and time consuming (e.g. involving multiple legal problems requiring extended, resource intensive representation services).

For this publication, the service data presented is based upon:

• The DSM standard which stipulates a service be counted once, on the day it was completed
• The additional scope (applied for this publication) of ‘services completed within the reference period’. 

Based on this methodology, qualifying information about the services (e.g. time, resource, complexity) is not reflected in these experimental statistics. Further, there is currently no common or agreed standard by which complexity or time expended on delivering a service could be comparably, or meaningfully measured. However, these factors should still be considered when interpreting the data presented. 

The data items presented for the service and client populations are primarily based upon the standards, definitions and categories described in the DSM. However, due to various factors affecting data quality, completeness and comparability, a limited range of data items (from those specified in the NLAP) are included in this first experimental release. These items are described below. 

Due to the varying quality or availability of information for some data items, data are aggregated for output, resulting is less detail being presented for some data items. Footnotes have been applied to data tables where necessary. 

Refer to Services provided across the sector and Data Quality and Comparability for more information.

Client Data items

Gender

Gender represents the gender identity of the client. Due to differences in recording practices across the sector and limited counts for some DSM gender categories, data are presented as: 

• Male
• Female
• Unknown.

The following DSM categories are not separately presented within tables. Data are subsumed within totals and footnoted within relevant tables.

• X not male or female
• Transgender
• Intersex or indeterminate
• Other.

Age 

Age refers to the client’s age (presented in age ranges) at the time the service was opened/commenced.

Where a client received more than one service during the reporting period, and had more than one age value recorded, their age at the time of the first service is used in this publication. 

Some age ranges are aggregated for output purposes. 

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander status 

The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander status data in this publication are based on the DSM standards and what was recorded by the service provider. These DSM categories (as presented) broadly align with the ABS Indigenous Status Standard. 

Categories include:

• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
  • Yes – Aboriginal
  • Yes – Torres Strait Islander
  • Yes – both Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
• No – (i.e. neither Aboriginal nor Torres Strait Islander)
• Not applicable (for groups/organisations)
• Not stated/inadequately described. 

Where a client received more than one service during the reporting period and had a combination of unknown and an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander status value recorded, the known value is selected for outputs in this publication. 

Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander status is not presented for clients who received a non-legal support service – this information is not required under Schedule D of the NLAP. 

Service data items 

Service type 

The service type data item relates to the type of legal assistance service provided to the client. Categories include: 

• Legal advice
• Legal task
• Non-legal support
• Facilitated resolution processes
• Ongoing legal support
• Duty lawyer
• Representations:
  • Dispute resolution
  • Court/Tribunal
  • Other representation.

For more information refer to the Glossary.

For more information about service types (provided by the sector) that are not in scope for this publication, refer to Data collection, 'Scope and coverage' section.

Law type 

The law type data item provides information about the area of law (or legislation) under which a particular legal matter is described. Categories include: 

• Civil 
• Criminal
• Family
• Unknown.

A single service may involve more than one law type. Where this occurs, the DSM stipulates that the service provider identifies the ‘primary’ law type for the service; and this is what is presented in this publication. According to the DSM, the primary law type is that which relates to the problem that is having the most significant impact on the client. 

Problem type 

The problem type data item provides information about the legal matter/s for which a client seeks legal assistance.  Each individual problem type is classified in the DSM as either civil law, family law or criminal law (refer to Appendix 1 – Problem type). 

A single service may involve more than one problem type. Where this occurs, a ‘primary’ problem type (as indicated by the data provider) is presented in the services data. 

For agencies that were unable to identify the primary problem type, the ABS randomly selected a single problem type (from those provided) for the purposes of this publication. 

Service and client data outputs

This publication presents data on the service and client populations as follows:

Total services:  

The total number of services that were completed within the reference period, including service type, problem type and law type. 

Total clients: 

The number of clients that received one or more completed service/s in the reference period. This is used to show the demographic profile of clients who received legal assistance and therefore, each client is counted once regardless of how many services they received during the reference period.

Client by service type: 

The number and proportion of clients that received a particular service type. For this population, each client is counted once for each distinct service type they received during the reference period.

Refer to the below diagram and table footnotes for further details on the counting methods used. 

The services provided by the LACs, ATSILSs and CLCs are outlined below, including some of the key information about their service and client profiles that inform the data presented in this publication.

Refer to Data Quality and Comparability for more information.

LACs are independent statutory bodies operating in each Australian state and territory. They provide legal assistance services for individuals that are experiencing disadvantage. 

LACs receive funding from the Commonwealth government (via the NLAP), from state and territory governments, and other sources.

Services provided by LACs

The services presented in this publication are those provided with NLAP funding. For the LACs, this includes the following legal matters: 

• Commonwealth family law and civil law matters
• A small amount of Commonwealth criminal matters 
• State law matters regarding the safety of a person, or child, which are connected to family law proceedings.

And the following service types:

• Services provided with a grant of aid: 
  • Legal representation in court proceedings and other legal procedures 
  • Independent Children’s Lawyer services to represent the best interests of the child in family law proceedings
  • Facilitated dispute resolutions
• Free duty lawyer services, providing one-off assistance to people appearing at court without a lawyer 
• Discrete assistance services (i.e. legal advice, legal task, non-legal support).

The services provided by the LACs that are not included in this publication are: representations, duty lawyer and facilitated resolution services for state legislated matters (which cover most criminal law matters and some civil and family law matters).

Given this, there are a range of legal problems (and the associated clients/services) that are not included in this publication for the LACs. For example, family/domestic violence related matters are generally legislated under state law, including the two family/domestic violence-specific problem types described in the DSM: ‘Domestic violence intervention order’ (under civil law); and ‘Family/domestic violence’ (under criminal law). As such, where clients with one of these problem types received a representation service, duty lawyer or facilitated resolution process from a LAC, these services/clients are largely not included in these national statistics. 

Grants of aid

Representation services provided to clients of the LACs are done so via a grant of aid, for which eligibility is determined by a ‘means test’ or income and assets test. Other factors are also considered, such as, the vulnerability of clients and the impact of legal representation in supporting them. There are also limitations on the types of legal proceedings for which a grant is available. 

For this publication, only the Commonwealth grants of aid are in scope, for which family law matters are most common.

There are situations where a client may meet the LAC eligibility criteria, but the LAC’s ‘inhouse’ lawyers are unable to represent them, such as where there is a conflict of interest (e.g. another related party is already receiving services from the LAC for the same or related matter). In these cases, a client is still eligible for a grant of aid and will be referred to another service provider, usually a private lawyer who is funded by the grant. 

Differences in services provided by LACs.

Within the terms of the NLAP agreement, the LACs determine the allocation of the NLAP funding towards Commonwealth law matters, the types of services provided, and the related means test and eligibility guidelines. Consequently, there may be slight differences in the services offered and eligibility criteria across the individual LACs, based on available funding and need. 

Where LACs provide certain services to clients over the phone (e.g. legal advice services), the information collected and recorded about these clients can be limited. This can result in gaps in some client data in this publication e.g. age, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander status.

ATSILSs are independent, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community-controlled legal services located in each state and territory. ATSILSs are founded on the principle of self-determination and provide culturally safe legal assistance and holistic support to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. 

Most ATSILSs are funded by the Commonwealth government, under the NLAP. Some ATSILSs also receive additional funding from their respective state/territory justice departments, and/or program-specific funding e.g. from the National Indigenous Australians Agency (NIAA). 

Services provided by ATSILSs

ATSILSs provide a range of services including family, care and protection, and civil law services, depending on funding and resources available. However, ATSILSs continue to provide a comparatively high proportion of criminal law services (relative to the other sector service providers), reflecting the ongoing demand for legal assistance for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who are over-represented across the criminal justice system. 

Many ATSILSs provide a comparatively higher proportion of duty lawyer and representation services (relative to the other sector service providers). However, differences in the service delivery models used across the ATSILSs and the interpretation/application of the counting rules described in the DSM impacts the comparability of the data presented for these services.  Refer to Data quality and comparability, 'Service type' section for more information.

Further, where numerous representation cases are finalised in one day for the same client, these are counted as one representation service (based on the DSM counting rules), rather than numerous.

ATSILSs provide relatively few legal advice and legal task services, as this work is generally undertaken and counted within duty lawyer or representation counts. 

The data presented in this publication for the ATSILSs are impacted by various factors, including (but not limited to) the following: 

• Resourcing constraints, staffing capacity and data/IT system limitations mean that the data provided by some ATSILSs may not reflect the full number of services provided in the reference period.
• Not all ATSILSs have the data capability/ IT systems to separate NLAP funded services from those funded from other sources.
• Challenges faced by some ATSILSs in delivering services to their clients, such as:
  • Geographic distribution of ATSILSs workforce and client base
  • Staff having to travel extremely large distances to represent clients in courts in remote or very remote locations
  • Staff shortages
  • Interpreter shortages.

Due to data recording practices used by some ATSILSs, clients may be overcounted where:

• they received a completed service at more than one ATSILS office location during the reference period and different unique client identifiers were applied at each location; or
• they received a legal service that involved more than one different law type and these matters were recorded as separate service records. 

CLCs are independent community-based and community-embedded providers of legal and related assistance to people in need, predominantly people experiencing financial hardship. However, centres also recognise there can be other barriers to justice besides financial ones and therefore other factors such as exposure to violence, or discrimination, can also determine eligibility for receiving a service. For example, some centres might run public interest cases for clients/communities without application of a financial hardship test. 

CLCs are funded through a combination of streams, which are not spread evenly across CLC specialisation, service area, or population counts. In addition to Commonwealth NLAP funding, some state/territory governments provide CLC funding to differing degrees, and with differing priorities regarding service provision, or service type. Some centres receive Commonwealth funding outside of the NLAP, and some secure funding from philanthropic sources and/or fundraising. 

Under the NLAP, data are provided by CLCs that receive Commonwealth NLAP funding and use the Community Legal Assistance Service System (CLASS) for data reporting. Based on this, there are many CLCs that are not represented in this publication, and the number of such CLCs varies across states/territories.

CLC services

CLCs largely provide services for family law and civil law matters, with some centres also operating criminal law practices. 

The services provided by the individual CLCs vary, with centres being either: 

• ‘Generalist’ centres providing legal services that are usually locally focused. 
• ‘Specialist’ centres that focus on a particular area of law (e.g. tenancy, refugee, environmental etc.); or a particular constituency (women, young people, First Nations women and children, etc.). These centres may also provide services state-wide, or nationally.  
• ‘Hybrid’ centres providing generalist services, with a specialist focus on a particular group or area of law beyond their generalist catchment.

Clients are referred to other legal assistance providers as appropriate. 

The data in this publication reflects the information maintained in the administrative data systems used across the sector, which itself is dependent on a variety of factors relating to the clients and services provided, as well as business practices. 

Additionally, administrative data - by its nature - is collected to support business management and operations and therefore, is not always entirely suitable for broader statistical purposes. 

This section outlines some of the variables affecting what and how data are collected and recorded by the sector (as a whole), and some of the impacts on the nature and comparability of the data in this publication.  Information relating to service data for individual service providers are included under Services provided across the sector.  

The relative complexity and duration of a service can affect the type and amount of information that is recorded. For example, for ‘simple’ or discrete services (i.e. those that are relatively quick/straightforward, such as legal advice) there can be less need for information, and/or insufficient opportunity to collect comprehensive information about the client and/or their legal problem. Further, it may not be appropriate (in some circumstances) to collect extensive information. 

Whereas services that are more complex or ‘ongoing’ (such as representation services) typically require more time/resource, and subsequently, there is generally greater opportunity and need to record more detailed information about the client and the service. 

The way in which services can be delivered can affect both the number of services completed in a given period, and/or the amount of information recorded for those services.

For example, where a service can be provided via telephone or online, as well as face-to-face, this may allow for more services to be delivered than where only face-to-face options are available. However, for services provided via telephone or online, there may be less opportunity to record information about the client and/or their legal problem than if the service was delivered face-to-face. 

Further, differences in the types of services offered via these methods may also impact the data in this publication. 

Some service providers utilise private lawyers to assist in delivering some services, such as duty lawyers and representation services. For example, the LACs use a ‘mixed model’ approach that combines in-house and private practitioner legal assistance. This results in a majority of LAC services provided with a grant of aid being delivered by private practitioners. Whereas the ATSILSs do not use private lawyers for providing services to their clients.

For services delivered by private practitioners, there are differences across the sector in what is recorded in the in-house administrative data systems. There can also be lags in the service records being closed off, which may result in some services that were actually completed in the reference period, not being identified as such for inclusion in this publication. 

For example, the mixed-model approach used by LACs results in possible undercounting of services delivered by private lawyers due to challenges with data collection, quality management and timeliness of data recording across the large number of private lawyers involved. 

These factors may impact the comparability of the data presented for services and clients.

The administrative data systems, data collection and recording methods used by service providers across the sector differ, for example: 

• Methods used to collect information from clients (e.g. hard copy or online client in-take forms; direct data entry into the system by administrative staff; online)
• The overall design and format of the data recording system e.g. degree of efficiency/ease of use; mandatory recording of certain items; amount of information recorded as free text 
• Available staff resources to record data
• Provision of staff training and supporting documentation
• Interpretation and degree of implementation of the national standards in the DSM (e.g. counting rules, data item categories)
• Procedures used to extract data required for reporting purposes. 

Client data

Total client population 

Where service providers have data recording practices in place to avoid client conflict issues, individual clients may be counted more than once in this publication. For example, where a client seeks assistance at a service provider for a criminal law matter and a family law matter, these matters may be separately recorded with different client identifiers. Such processes are handled differently across the sector, depending on factors such as service models and data systems.

Given there are different and separate data systems used across the sector to record client and service information, individual or ‘unique’ clients that received a completed service at more than one different service provider during the reference period (e.g. one service at a LAC and one at a CLC), or across different states/territories (e.g. a CLC in New South Wales and a CLC in Victoria), will be counted separately in data for each service provider within this publication. 

Due to both these factors, the ‘total client counts’ presented are not necessarily a count of ‘unique’ clients. 

Client demographic information 

Client demographic data (gender, age, and/or Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander status) is not always recorded for services that are less complex or time/resource intensive, or where the services are provided over the phone. This mainly impacts data for legal advice services.

Client data (including total number of clients and/or demographic information) is not always recorded for services where there is more than one client. In particular:

• Facilitated resolution processes – There are differences in what client information is recorded and available from across the sector and as such, client data are not presented for this service type.
• Services involving an Independent Children’s Lawyer (ICL) – Where an ICL has been assigned to represent the best interests of a child/children involved in a family related dispute, only one client’s details may be recorded for that service, irrespective of how many children were being represented. As such, clients (and their associated demographics) may be undercounted for representation services. 

Service data

Service type

Legal advice services: The total number of legal advice services delivered in a given period can be affected by whether or not service providers have a mechanism, or process in place to provide these services in a manner other than direct face-to-face e.g., over the phone, or online. For example, for those state/territory LACs that can provide legal advice services over the phone, this service type may make up a higher proportion of all their completed services, as compared to other LACS. 

This also impacts the national service counts for legal advice and all service types, and the total client population for the LACs and the sector as a whole.

Counts of some service types may be undercounted for service providers that utilise private practitioners to deliver those services, where service details are not recorded on the in-house administrative systems.

Representation and duty lawyer services: There is variation across the sector in how these service types are ‘counted’ and recorded which impacts the comparability of the data in this publication. 

Based on the current DSM counting rules, for a client that receives multiple duty lawyer services, each separate service is counted. However, if the matter is subsequently taken on by the service provider in an ongoing capacity, it is then considered to be a representation service. The service will then be counted as one service (from that point), regardless of how many times the solicitor appears in court. 

As such, the question of when a service is deemed ‘ongoing’ can have considerable impact on how it is counted for statistical purposes. 

For example, where a service provider uses a private practitioner to deliver a duty lawyer service, the service would be provided and then, in most cases, ‘handed back’ to the primary service provider for any further action (e.g. administrative or record keeping purposes). If that matter was adjourned to another date and the client returned to court and received another duty lawyer service, this may be counted as a new separate service. This could continue, with multiple duty lawyer services being recorded, until such time as the matter is finalised, or taken on in an ongoing capacity (as a representation) – at which point it becomes a single service. 

However, for most ATSILSs – who provide most of their services in the criminal courts, without the use of private lawyers – the above scenario (i.e. a single client receiving multiple duty lawyer services) would likely be handled/recorded differently. For situations where a single client requires multiple or ongoing assistance for a matter before the court, the ATSILSs will often manage the client via an ‘open file’, whereby the client is assisted until such time as the matter is concluded (or the ATSILS withdraws their assistance). As such, this matter would generally be counted as a single representation service, regardless of the number of criminal charges or court appearances involved.   

Given the high volumes of services provided by ATSILSs solicitors in the criminal court, the management and recording of these services will impact the service and client populations presented in this publication.

Law type and problem type

The DSM specifies the individual problem type categories and the respective law types under which they are classified (refer Appendix 1 – Problem Type Classification). However, the quality and comparability of these two data items is impacted by various factors, largely relating to challenges faced by the sector in applying the current DSM standards, and differences in data recording practices. 

Key issues/limitations with the DSM include:

• Misalignment of the classification of law type and problem type in the DSM, and state/territory legislation
• Limited problem type categories
• Requirements/guidance relating to the identification of a ‘primary’ problem type (for services involving more than one distinct legal problem).

Some of the main differences in the recording of problem type that impact the data presented in this publication include: 

• Whether the data are recorded based on the DSM categories/standards (or local problem codes and descriptions)
• If and how a primary law/problem type is determined
• The capacity to extract/report the data items based on the DSM (and NLAP) requirements, (regardless of how the information is recorded).

All the above issues impact the data to varying degrees, with the following two examples evident in the outputs presented: 

• Overuse of the ‘other’ problem type categories
• Underrepresentation of family and domestic violence related legal problems. 

Users should exercise caution when interpreting problem type data presented within this publication and are advised not to make inferences based on these data, particularly for family and domestic violence related matters. 

The Census and Statistics Act 1905 provides the authority for the ABS to collect statistical information and requires that statistical output shall not be published or disseminated in a manner that is likely to enable the identification of a particular person or organisation. This requirement means that the ABS must ensure that any statistical information about individuals cannot be derived from published data.

To minimise the risk of identifying individuals in aggregate statistics, a technique is used to randomly adjust cell values and summary variables. This technique is called perturbation and was applied to the Legal Assistance Services publication for this first experimental release. Perturbation involves small random adjustment of the statistics and is considered the most satisfactory technique for avoiding the release of identifiable statistics while maximising the range of information that can be released. These adjustments have a negligible impact on the underlying pattern of the statistics.

After perturbation, a given published cell value will be consistent across all tables. However, the sum of components of a total will not necessarily give the same result as the published total in a particular table. As such, proportions may add to more or less than 100%. Readers are advised to use the published totals rather than deriving totals based on component cells. 

Cells with relatively small values may be proportionally more affected by perturbation than large values. Users are advised against conducting analysis and drawing conclusions based on small values.

There are some other publicly available sources of national statistics on legal assistance, such as service provider annual reports and articles by research agencies and other sector stakeholder groups. Comparisons between data presented in this publication and other sources should be made with caution given differences in collection and reporting methodologies.