As the COVID-19 pandemic continued to unfold, RLC called for law reform to prevent communities already experiencing vulnerability from being further left behind.
With your support, we will help more people in crisis during 2021.
1. Thanks to the support of generous donations, RLC assisted 2,332 people in crisis to navigate the legal system, providing 5,588 occasions of advice and 3,815 instances of information and referrals.
2. We mobilised more volunteers than ever, inducting and supervising 321 skilled law students and volunteer solicitors who contributed over 20,000 hours to assist people in crisis across NSW during the pandemic.
3. Our Tenancy service played a lead role in calling for a moratorium on evictions and greater protections for renters during COVID-19, working with the Tenants Union and other tenancy services. We provided over 2,000 instances of advice, representation and referrals to tenants in urgent need, including people in public and community housing, international students and other groups hardest hit by the fallout from COVID-019.
4. Our Police Accountability practice uncovered a growing number of strip searches on First Nations and young people during COVID-19, and commenced a class actions investigation into unlawful police strip searches with class action experts, Slater and Gordon.
Recognising that fines have a disproportionate impact on people already experiencing vulnerability, we launched a free statewide COVID-19 fines advice service to support people with COVID-19 fines.
5. Our International Student Legal Service NSW launched My Legal Mate, a mobile app to provide interactive legal advice in seven languages to international students at universities across NSW.
Working with Study NSW and City of Sydney we ensured that over 70,000 free licences of the app were readily available to protect international students across the state. We also worked with the NSW Government on other COVID-019 initiatives, including a temporary accommodation scheme providing crisis accommodation to students in urgent need.
6. In partnership with three other community legal centres, we launched a statewide Migrant Employment Legal Service, and advocated to Government to achieve additional supports for migrant workers and other temporary visa holders ineligible for COVID-19 welfare support.
7. Our Credit and Debt practice achieved significant law reform to the Fines Act NSW working with other CLCs, and made submissions on changes to Australia’s consumer credit framework.
We shielded people from the financial impact of COVID-19 by representing clients provided with unsuitable finance products and worked hand-in-hand with other RLC practice areas to ensure legal advice and representation was targeted toward people most affected by financial vulnerability during the crisis.
9. In the face of increasing rates of domestic violence, our Financial Abuse Service NSW, forged new partnerships and engaged additional volunteers and pro bono legal staff to grow our new statewide service for people experiencing financial abuse. Since launching the service, we have supported clients to waive over $600,000 of debt accrued in abusive intimate partner relationships.
10. Our Health Justice Partnership (HJP) solicitors, working with our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Access worker, recovered close to $1 million dollars for First Nations people and other vulnerable patients in health care settings, who would otherwise not access legal support.
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