What We Can Help With - Barwon Community Legal Service

What We Can Help With

Our team of experienced lawyers are available to assist non-legal professionals to support their clients to identify their legal problems and connect them to legal help.

Our lawyers are experienced in a wide variety of legal matters.  You can read more about the areas of law that we practice here.

If you are unsure it is always best to contact us to see how we can assist.

 

Sometimes it’s not always obvious when your client is experiencing a legal issue. A legal health check can help you identify whether your client may benefit from a discussion with a lawyer.

Are you working with a client and have a legal question?  We can help you work out if your client would benefit from legal assistance and/or refer you onto an appropriate service.  To arrange a secondary consult contact us and we will connect you to a lawyer.

Our lawyers can accept referrals to support your clients if they have a legal issue that relates to an area of law in which we practice. You can contact us to make a referral or complete an online referral form.

Our Community team runs free legal education workshops to support non-legal practitioners to become legal issue spotters and understand areas of law that impact their work. Sessions can be tailored to organisations or industry sectors.  Learn more about training available for staff here.

Case study

Giovanni works for a youth homelessness service and has supported young mother Lena over many years to find stable housing. Lena trusts Giovanni, but she is reluctant to talk to any other services. Due to COVID-19, within a matter of weeks Lena loses her job, then her ex-partner doesn’t return their son to her care causing her to lose her Centrelink payments, she gets fined by Victoria Police under COVID-19 laws and also she can no longer pay the rent to her Landlord. Giovanni is overwhelmed, he knows there are multiple legal issues for Lena, but where to start?

Giovanni gets permission from Lena to do a secondary consultation with Barwon Community Legal Service. As we are discussing an individual’s legal issues, we do a conflict check to make sure we don’t have a conflict of interest. Giovanni then speaks to one of our lawyers to understand the legal issues involved, and which services could help Lena with Family Law, Centrelink, Fines and Tenancy Law. We then send Giovanni referral information to discuss with Lena.

Giovanni later informs us that Lena has decided she needs to see a Family Lawyer to try and recover custody of her son, so we assist her by making a referral to an appropriate lawyer. Giovanni also makes an appointment for Lena to speak to one of our lawyers directly about her other legal issues.

Last modified on March 4th, 2021 at 1:45 pm

The content on this site is information only and is not legal advice. If you need legal advice please contact us.