Legal Services Agency

The Legal Services Agency is responsible for helping people access justice, by funding legal aid, initial criminal legal services and community law centres, providing direct representation through the in-house service, the Public Defence Service, and producing law-related education and information. In addition to legal aid services, the Agency funded lawyers to provide duty solicitor services. The Duty Solicitor Scheme ensures that lawyers are available “on duty” at every District Court in the country. Duty lawyers provide free legal help on the first day in court for anyone who has been charged with a criminal offence and doesn’t have their own lawyer. The Agency also funded 27 community law centres (CLCs), which together delivered 51,000 hours of case work, 27,000 hours of legal information services and 11,000 hours of law-related education services to their communities.