How we help our clients

Every day our lawyers work with clients from a multitude of backgrounds, many of whom have faced significant challenges in their lives, which have often contributed to their legal problems. Find out about the positive impact different forms of legal assistance had on some of our priority clients this year.

We helped 85,007 clients this year. 25% had no income. 55% were receiving some form of government benefit. 29% were living in regional or rural Victoria. 22% were from CALD backgrounds. 5% required the assistance of an interpreter. 9% were in custody, detention or psychiatric care, 12% were younger than 19 years of age, 25% disclosed having a disability or mental illness, 3% were homeless, 4% were of ATSI background.

Figures are based on the total number of unique clients: 85,007. Unique clients are individual clients who accessed one or more of Victoria Leg al Aid’s legal services. This does not include people for whom a client-lawyer relationship was not formed, who received telephone, website or in-person information at court or at public counters, or participated in community legal education – we do not create an individual client record for these people.

* Examples include children and young people, people experiencing homelessness, people in custody and immigration detention, and psychiatric patients.

** This is based on the Australian Bureau of Statistics definition of people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. It includes people who speak a language other than English at home and people who were born in a non-English speaking country.

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