Legal Aid
6. Eligibility for Legal Assistance
Authors: Staff Legal Eagle
Firm / Chambers:
Last updated: 02 Aug 2015
- Legal Aid will look at the following issues when deciding whether you are eligible for a grant of legal assistance:
- the type of matter you have;
- whether providing assistance will be likely to benefit you and whether it could benefit the public;
- how much money you have using the ‘means test’ which considers:
- your earnings from work or otherwise;
- your assets such as your house;
- your weekly living expenses;
- whether you support another person financially;
- whether another person supports you financially (if someone does support you financially Legal Aid will look at their income and assets); and
- how much legal assistance would cost you.
- After assessing the above factors Legal Aid will make one of three decisions:
- you can afford to pay your own legal expenses so you will not receive a grant;
- Legal Aid will fund part of the legal expenses and you will fund the remainder; or
- Legal Aid will fund the full cost of legal expenses.
- The specific details of each of these tests varies between states and territories and can be quite complicated. New South Wales Legal Aid applies an additional test to determine whether they have enough funding at the particular point in time that you apply.
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