Melton residents are among the state’s highest users of Legal Aid, a new report has found.
The municipality ranks second behind Frankston, with residents of Brimbank, Casey, Hume, Wyndham and Yarra Ranges also among the service’s top clients.
Legal Aid released a “consultation and options” paper last week as part of wide-ranging changes to family law services.
It mapped out 40 options to make legal help for family law problems more accessible.
Family law deals with marriage, divorce, civil unions, domestic partnerships, adoption, surrogacy, child abuse and child abduction.
The report shows that in the three years to January 2014, Legal Aid provided between 9.9 and 14 services per 1000 residents and saw between 6.4 and 9 clients per 1000 across the state.
‘Services’ refers to repeat visits, while ‘clients’ are the people who visited a Legal Aid office.
Family, youth and children’s law director Nicole Rich said there was a need for more timely help when navigating through a complex family law system.
“The [family violence] intervention order might be decided on the day, but people don’t know they need additional help to sort out their longer-term family arrangements or how to get that help,” Ms Rich said.
The paper notes the barriers to accessing legal assistance are not necessarily financial.
Instead it cites language and cultural barriers, mental and physical health issues, and poor literacy as some of the reasons. Project manager Brigid Jenkins said one of the recommendations of the consultation paper was to implement outreach services.
“So, sending lawyers to locations and going out into the community instead of having people come into our offices,” Ms Jenkins said.
“Clearly Melton is a hotspot for clients because there’s a need for legal advice.
“There could be a couple of reasons … we have offices nearby and the demographics of the area.”
Find out more
Visit legalaid.vic.gov.au.
