We are pleased to be back helping people who need legal advice and want to speak in person to a lawyer, with our outreach back in full swing.

NSW Outreach Lawyer Raissa Butkowski is back at the Hub in Albury and Lavington Library. Raissa returned for her first visit to the Intereach office at Corowa on Thursday 17 March and is visiting on the third Thursday of every month. Appointments are available so please call (02) 6055 8090 to make a booking to talk to us about your legal problem. 

We are also back in Corryong, with our lawyers Kristi Pemmelaar and Shelley Alvarez visiting on the first and third Thursday of every month to help people impacted by the 2020 bushfires. They also plan to visit Mount Beauty, Myrtleford and Bright on a regular basis and are currently connecting with local services to plan their schedule.

You can find all our outreach dates on our website, just click on the link below.

Interested to learn more about the Fines system in NSW? This Bite Size Law session will give you an understanding of what to do when one of your clients tells you they have a fine.

Lawyer Raissa Butkowski will cover all the top tips in 30-minutes about fines and how to access free legal help, including:

·       What is a fine?

·       What is the lifecycle of a fine?

·       Are financial hardship reductions be available?

·       What are your options to deal with fines? 

Date: Wednesday 23 March

Time: 2-2.30pm

Online: please email Simon Crase at scrase@umfc.com.au for the Microsoft Teams link

A HRCLS lawyer is presenting a FREE online session about Intervention Orders and Family Violence in Victoria including:

•  What family violence is and what kind of behaviour might give rise to an Intervention Order 
• How to apply for an Intervention Order and a summary of the Court process
• What to do if a client or person is subject to an Intervention Order as either a victim survivor or perpetrator including how you can support them

This session will help practitioners and support workers understand more about the legal process that our clients go through when they are experiencing family violence.

Please click link below to register, registrations are open until 5pm on 22 March, please feel free to share amongst your organisations and agencies. 

Date: Thursday 24 March

Time: 8-9am

Wodonga Police, Gateway Health and HRCLS will be co-hosting an information panel to talk about how police, lawyers and support services respond to family violence. This FREE session is aimed at key services working with family violence victim-survivors in Wodonga.

The information will help services and organisations understand:

·       how police approach family violence matters in regard to applying for intervention orders, investigations and breaches of Orders,

·       how lawyers can assist victim-survivors of family violence

·       the role support workers play to ensure victim-survivors have an understanding of the processes involved and expected outcomes in various situations.

This is an opportunity for frontline and support services in Wodonga to gather as a collective to hear from police, lawyers and a support service and learn about their duties and roles, and ask questions to inform their own practices.

The panel is IN-PERSON and will not be streamed or recorded.

Date: Tuesday 12 April

Time: 2pm

Venue: UMFC Conference Room - 29 Stanley Street 

We are pleased to announce Melbourne-based Barrister Amanda Storey as our guest speaker for the 2022 Women in Law Breakfast. 

Before being admitted to the Bar, Amanda spent well over 10 years practicing in the areas of consumer law, consumer credit law, banking and finance law, and was Director of Legal Practice for the Consumer Action Law Centre. 

As the feature event on the Law Week calendar, the breakfast is being held at the Atura Albury. Tickets will be on sale soon. We look forward to you joining us on Thursday 19 May for another fantastic event celebrating women in law! 

Mia* was having trouble getting her insurance claim settled for her car that was stolen and destroyed. She had no way to get her children to school, or get to her job, and this was overwhelming her as she struggled to deal with an extreme case of domestic violence. 

HRCLS stepped in and got the insurance company to agree to pay out the claim, overcoming the barriers Mia had faced to get the issue fixed.

Read Mia's full story and and how beneficial our legal assistance was getting her and her children into a new car. 

*Mia is not client's real name.

We're asking for your support in a new campaign to get sustainable funding for our community legal sector. This will help ensure we can keep assisting those most in need with their legal problems, and get the positive policy changes to make lives better. Hands Up For Justice is being led by Community Legal Centres Australia

Everyone deserves access to justice in regional Australia, and we need your support to ensure people can get the legal help they need. Please click on the link and show your support for us!