Legal aid body scrimps to pay for its move
The Legal Services Commission of South Australia is moving into new premises today, but did not receive a cent of extra funding to pay for the expensive move.
Instead, the commission scrimped and saved for six years, and paid for it out of its own pool of funding.
Despite this, Legal Services Commission Director Gabrielle Canny says legal aid services in South Australia did not suffer as a result.
“We would meet demand for services each year,” Canny told InDaily.
“Where we saw opportunities for growth, we had to hold them until we were able to have enough space and appropriate facilities to provide those additional services.
“But core services stayed the same.”
Canny says the new location – at 159 Gawler Place (corner of Gawler Place and Flinders Street) means “the public will have a better appreciation that legal aid is in their midst”.
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“It is really important that people know they have an entitlement to ask about their legal issues,” she said.
“Everybody in South Australia is entitled to ask about a problem they might have with their neighbour, a matrimonial issue, a driving offense, any legal issue in their lives.”
A key service the commission provides is dispute resolution – an alternative to bringing matters to court.
According to Canny, “the emphasis through all legal matters that end up in court is to try to resolve them at the earliest stage possible.”
“We’re able to respond to the courts who are now very frequently asking us whether we can mediate matters on the day of the scheduled trial.
“They say to us ‘let’s have one more turn at trying to settle this matter without litigating before a judge’, and we’ve been doing much of that with success.”
Agreements are reached in 80% of mediation conferences facilitated by the commission.
However, the commission’s old premises were becoming inadequate for their needs, with staff potentially “at risk” due to insecure interview rooms.
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She says in highly emotional matters, such as family law, security is a major concern.
“People might be arguing about where there children should live; there needs to be good facilities for them to come together with their legal advisors to reach a solution.”
The new building has some high security features, such as quarantined hallways for clients and lawyers, duress alarms in the interview rooms, and separate public and corporate entryways.
Canny says “it is almost standard for law firms and legal aid commissions around Australia to have secure interview rooms.”
But she says they could not achieve that in their old, outdated premises.
“We could no longer put our staff at risk.
“They could have been at risk if things had gone wrong with clients.
“This new building was fitted out around the concept of having secure interview rooms.”
Canny says the Commonwealth and State governments demand certain levels of performance, including increasing their services.
“More service is an interesting concept; because we actually want to provide less court services.
“If there are less court filings, which would be the aim for family court, for people to resolve matters rather than going to court, then of course we would expect to see more matters in our dispute mediation program.
“Then people are resolving it there rather than at court.”
The commission was able to make savvy business decisions when changing buildings.
“We took advantage of the market situation in Adelaide, where b-class rental accommodation became much more available and commercially viable than it had in the years before.”
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