Legal Aid
5. Grant of Legal Assistance
Authors: Staff Legal Eagle
Firm / Chambers:
Last updated: 02 Aug 2015
- A grant of legal assistance allows you to retain a solicitor to assist you with your matter.
- Legal Aid will either assign you a private lawyer who is registered with Legal Aid or a lawyer from Legal Aid itself.
- When you apply for a grant of legal assistance you can nominate your preferred registered private lawyer. Legal Aid will try to assign that lawyer to your matter however this is not guaranteed. Sometimes your nominated lawyer cannot act for you as they are already acting or have acted for the other party in your matter. This is known as a ‘conflict of interest’. If this is the case you may be assigned a different private lawyer or a Legal Aid lawyer.
- There are certain matters for which Legal Aid usually assigns its own lawyer instead of a private lawyer such as:
- indictable (serious) criminal matters;
- expensive family law matters;
- matters to be heard in the County Court or Supreme Court or before the Forensic Leave Panel under the Crimes (Mental Impairment and Unfitness to be Tried) Act 1997 (Vic);
- children under seven years of age who are involved in a hearing in the Family Division of the Children’s Court;
- social security matters at the Authorised Review Officer and Social Security Appeals Tribunal; and state equal opportunity matters.
- Grants of legal assistance are most commonly provided to people involved in family and criminal matters but are also available for certain other matters.
- Grants can be made to cover some or all of the legal costs involved in your matter.
- Where only some costs are covered you may be required to cover the remainder of costs.
- Examples of legal costs a grant might cover include advice, drafting of legal documents, negotiating with other parties and representing you in court.
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