Lawyer Secondary Consultations: improving access to justice: reaching clients otherwise excluded through professional support in a multi-disciplinary practice¹

Abstract

If people do not know they have rights or legal responsibilities; do not have the confidence to assert them or do not know the pathways to gain access to legal support and advice to action these legal rights, then those legal rights become unrealisable. It is now empirically established that unresolved legal problems result in poorer health and social outcomes. This article explores secondary consultations, where a lawyer gives one-to-one information or advice in a timely and approachable way to non-legal professionals ('trusted intermediaries') likely to have contact with vulnerable and disadvantaged clients, is an effective way of reaching clients who would otherwise not gain help or advice. The thesis for this article is that legal secondary consultations builds capacity and confidence in professionals to identify legal issues so they either support a client or, where appropriate, refer clients who would otherwise not get help because of a range of inhibitors. Legal secondary consultations enable people to identify legal issues which if unidentified or unresolved can impact significantly on their lives. The author draws on findings from recent research in urban, outer urban and rural settings in Australia and on her practical experience of secondary consultations for over a decade.

Mimicry and law: Experiments in a natural setting of a law company

“…It is clear that building professional relationships, that is, a relational approach to law practice, is a key component of legal practice [ 1 – 3 ], and trust (or lack thereof) is highlighted as highly crucial in this process [ 34 – 36 ]. The present paper joins this effort by recommending future directions in which the results discussed here might be employed.…”

Access to justice research: On the way to a broader perspective

“…Some studies are equally subject and context relative, e.g. Bajpai's (2016) study on marginalized and vulnerable groups in India, Mmbali's (2016) study of an indigenous girl in northern Kenya, Guedes et al's (2018) short discussion on access to justice for orthodontists' risking malpractice lawsuits and Mogapaesi's (2019) "lessons for Botswana from a South African perspective" regarding women's rights and sexual harassment in workplaces, while other studies treat specific subjects within a systematic law framework such as alternative dispute resolution (Creutzfeldt 2016), or lawyer secondary consultations (Curran 2017). Other still utilize a systematic law approach in studies concerned with specific geographical contexts (e.g.…”

Evaluating projects in multifaceted and marginalised communities: The need for mixed approaches

“…The idea of having a multi-method triangulated approach was to test and verify the results across the various data collection tools to see if they remained consistent. As will be discussed later in more detail, the questions were framed and informed by previous research and literature (Ball, Wong, & Victorian Legal Services Board Curran, 2016; Curran, 2015, 2017a, 2017b, 2017c, 2017d; Sanderson, Edwards, Williams, & Curran, 2017). The tools and associated interview questions and prompts were discussed with the Advisory Group, an Aboriginal Advisor, the initial service provider, and a Focus Group of young people who added their insights and refined the tools to ensure they were appropriate and relevant before roll-out.…”

“…A Collaborative Measurement Tool developed by Curran (2017b) and Curran and Taylor-Barnett (2018) based in part on a VicHealth model (2011), was used with data from the final field trip to assess how services were working together over the life of the project. This analysis revealed a movement from service start-up of working in silos, to more collaboration and ‘seamless interactions’ which connected young people across the services for their different needs, resulting in an increase in young people and non-legal professionals trusting lawyers.…”