In 2019-20, community legal service LawRight delivered more than 33,300 hours of free legal service to Queensland’s most vulnerable to help improve their lives and provide equitable access to justice.
LawRight President and former Supreme Court judge Roslyn Atkinson AO said that, even during a global pandemic, it had been able to provide exceptional legal services free of charge to society’s most vulnerable and disadvantaged.
Ms Atkinson, in the recently released LawRight 2020 Annual Report, said: “LawRight has continued to be able provide quality pro bono services to even more people (during COVID-19).
“Law firms and individual lawyers have (also) responded in the best possible way to the increased need for legal services for (LawRight) clients, normally vulnerable, but made more so by an unruly pandemic.’’
She said LawRight had been able to provide its services through the outstanding contribution of the legal profession and partnerships across 21 locations, including the courts, tribunals and community and health service centres.
Queensland Chief Justice Catherine Holmes AC, LawRight’s patron, said: “The 2019/2020 reporting year began unmemorably, but the start of 2020 and the advent of COVID-19 pandemic threw up problems for delivery of legal services no one had ever contemplated.
“Remarkably, LawRight has weathered that disruption in fine style, delivering even more pro bono hours than last year and, wonder of wonders, breaking fundraising records for the 2020 Queensland Legal Walk.
“The success of the Walk, although it could not be the usual en-masse event, demonstrates that community is much more than physical togetherness.”
Read LawRight’s 2019/2020 Annual Report.
Share this article