Connecting with Justice Connect

By Darryl Browne in Blog on September 29, 2016

On Thursday evening Professor Gillian Triggs[1] is addressing a gathering of current and former board members and supporters of Justice Connect. It is now over three years since the Public Interest Law Clearing Houses (PILCH) NSW and its Victorian branch merged. The merger has meant that the new organisation is better able to improve access to justice. It does that through collaboration with lawyers, governments, professional legal associations and community groups.

Justice Connect helps people facing disadvantage who are ineligible for legal aid and cannot afford a lawyer to access free legal assistance. They do this in three ways. The first involves Justice Connect receiving and assessing requests for pro bono legal assistance from the public and referring them to lawyers. The second is achieved through programs that target the unmet legal needs of particular client groups. Thirdly, Justice Connect engages with law and policy makers to help improve laws or policies that cause or perpetuate disadvantage, or which are unduly complex.

I’ll be attending the gathering on Thursday evening because I identify with and support these causes and objectives.

All the Best

Darryl Browne[2]

[1] Gillian Triggs is the President of the Australian Human Right Commission. She was Dean of the Sydney Law School between 2007 and 2012. She gained national prominence in 2014 when she received criticism from the Federal government after launched the National Inquiry into Children in Immigration, a report which investigated the ways in which life in immigration detention affected the health, well-being and development of children.

[2] I’m a Councillor of the Law Society of NSW. I Chair of the Law Society’s Ethics Committee. I’m Deputy Chair of the Elder Law and Succession Committee. I’m a member of the Specialist Accreditation Board, the Futures Committee and the Nominations Committee, the Working Group on Future Prospects for Young Graduates and the Working Group on Elder Abuse. I’m also a member of the LCA’s Elder Law and Succession committee and its Working Group on Elder Abuse. I facilitate the Law Society’s online Wills and Probate Procedures for Solicitors. I designed and present the Law Society’s Masterclass on Powers of Attorney.

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