Victoria Legal Aid (VLA) provides a range of legal aid services to the public throughout Victoria.
You can use this handbook to find out how to apply for a grant of legal assistance. The other services VLA provides include:
- legal information services (including a library service)
- community legal education, including free online resources and publications
- alternative dispute resolution in family law matters through the Victoria Legal Aid Family Dispute Resolution Service
- duty lawyers at the Magistrates’ Courts, the Children’s Court, the Mental Health Review Tribunal, psychiatric in-patient services and the Melbourne Registry of the Family Court
- free legal advice from VLA’s in-house lawyers in some matters.
VLA provides all these services under the Legal Aid Act 1978. The Commonwealth and state governments provide some of the funding for VLA to do this.
Together, the Legal Aid Act, Commonwealth and state legal aid policies, and priorities and determinations made by VLA’s Board of Directors, govern:
- the types of legal matter for which VLA may make a grant of legal assistance to a person
- who is eligible to receive a grant of legal assistance
- the terms and conditions placed on the grants of assistance VLA makes to people
- the payments VLA makes to private lawyers who represent legally assisted people and the other costs VLA pays.
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