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About Women's Legal Aid
Women's Legal Aid (WLA) is a specialist unit within Legal Aid Queensland (LAQ) that provides services including legal information, advice, representation and specialist social work support to women. WLA also provides court assistance to women applying for domestic violence orders in the Brisbane Magistrates Court.
WLA is also involved in a number of joint projects with other governmentorganisations, community organisations and within Legal Aid Queensland.
Our mission is to increase access to legal services and improve the responsiveness of Legal Aid Queensland to meet women's needs. We develop and maintain effective working relationships with service providers and identify, review and respond to issues impacting on women's access to justice.
WLA is based in the Brisbane and Woodridge offices of LAQ and provides direct services mainly in the areas of family law, domestic violence, criminal injuries compensation and care and protection matters. WLA also does some limited work in criminal and anti-discrimination matters.
WLA is staffed by two legal officers, a social worker and court assistance workers. The court assistance workers are based in Brisbane and assist women applying for domestic violence orders in the Brisbane Magistrates Court.
Referral Guidelines
Priority is given to matters where women are having difficulty accessing legal aid services due to:
- the policies or guidelines of LAQ
- the complicated nature of their matter and number of issues involved
- the difficulties they experience in accessing legal aid services
- specialised social work support being needed.
WLA also assists in matters where a woman of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander background or a woman of a non-English-speaking background or a woman with a disability is having difficulty accessing legal aid services.
Clients of WLA do not have to live in the Logan and Beenleigh areas, but priority is given to women in this region.
There are several options for women clients to access Legal Aid Queensland including:
- legal advice clinics in all LAQ offices
- specialist unit telephone advice clinics
- legal information from the Client Information Services call centre.
Women's Legal Aid Advice Clinic
Women's Legal Aid conducts a legal advice clinic every Thursday at the Woodridge office of LAQ. The solicitors have face-to-face appointments in the morning and telephone appointments from 10am onwards. Appointments at the Brisbane office are available on request.
To book an appointment, call Client Information Services on 1300 65 11 88.