Poor pay sees lawyers stop legal aid work

The Law Institute of Victoria is predicting that the state's court system will be overloaded with unrepresented clients because of inadequate funding for legal aid.

The institute says pay for legal aid work has become so poor and the workload so great that hundreds of lawyers have made the decision to immediately stop taking on cases.

A recent survey by the Federal Attorney-General's department showed that a third of law firms that have done legal aid work in the past have stopped mostly because the rate of pay is about half the going commercial rate.

The president of the Law Council of Australia, Ross Ray, says it is a national problem for all state governments and the Commonwealth.

"The system is really calling out for help and it is time the State and Federal Government paid appropriate attention to the issues. It is the community that loses out and it really is time this was dealt with," he said.

The president of the Law Institute of Victoria, Tony Burke, says the legal aid system in Victoria is in crisis and legal aid lawyers are preparing to down tools.

"We are expecting that as a consequence, there will be delays in the courts," he said.

"The courts will struggle. Judges and magistrates will have to deal with many more unrepresented people. There will be inconvenience. The cost of running the courts will increase. The cost of policing will increase and the cost of corrections will increase.

"For too long in Victoria we have had what is effectively a gaping wound in the criminal justice system and it has been patched over by the unpaid labour of lawyers in the worst-paid sector of the private legal profession. Now that unpaid labour won't any longer be available and the problem will get worse."

Mr Burke says legal aid lawyers were once paid almost as much as they could earn from paying clients, but now they earn somewhere between 15 and 45 per cent of the average private fee.

"The Victorian Bar recently did some research which shows that junior barristers, for example, who in the main would have had at least six years of tertiary education and several years in practice, are earning as little as $36,000 a year," he said.

"And that is sometimes half and less than a half of what is being paid to the public prosecutors at the other end of the bar table and it is even less than what is being paid in the private profession."

Mr Burke says lawyers who take on legal aid cases are now required to do more background work than in the past and they are not getting paid for it.

"We are expecting that some hundreds of lawyers who in the main are doing legally aided work will cease to do this effectively pro bono or charity work that isn't covered by legal aid and that will have a reverberation through the system," he said.

"That happens now. That is beginning today, the practitioners are saying enough is enough. They are not going to continue with this charity work they are not paid for any longer."

The state Attorney-General's office referred request for comment to the managing director of Legal Aid Victoria, Bevan Warner.

Mr Warner is urging lawyers not to stop working for legal aid.

"Well, it would have a significant impact and I sincerely hope that that doesn't occur," he said.

Mr Warner confirmed Victoria Legal Aid had an operating deficit of more than $20 million last financial year, and said there should be more Commonwealth funding.

"Whereas the State Government has provided ongoing assurances in relation to funding sufficient to preserve service levels, the Commonwealth Government has not and services in Commonwealth law matters have had to be reduced by 30 per cent," he said.

"Ten years ago the Commonwealth Government contributed approximately 60 per cent of legal aid funding and last year this figure had dropped to 30 per cent.

"Now Commonwealth's policy is to encourage parents to focus on their needs of their children when they separate and just yesterday I was advised of a situation where a parent on income support had not seen their eight-year-child for some years and having a home with $170,000 equity meant they were ineligible for legal aid to have a lawyer put the case for contact with the child.

"Now the only option available to this parent was to sell or refinance the home and to fund their own action."

Mr Warner says lawyers' fees are now under review.

"Legal aid is committing to reviewing its fee structures to ensure that the time allowances that are comprehended in our fee structures are contributing to an effective court system and one that avoids unnecessary court events," he said.

"But it is important that we align these time allowances with proposed new court procedures that will come into effect late next year and the Law Institute is aware of these plans."

A spokesman for the Federal Attorney-General, Robert McClelland, says legal aid received a one-off funding boost of $7 million last year, including about $2 million dollars for Legal Aid Victoria.

Related:

Law council backs Family Court merger plan
The Law Council of Australia has backed recommendations to revamp family law by integrating the Family Court with the Family Law Division of the Federal Magistrates Court.

Law council backs Family Court merger plan

The Law Council of Australia has backed recommendations to revamp family law by integrating the Family Court with the Family Law Division of the Federal Magistrates Court.

A Commonwealth report, released by the Federal Attorney-General Robert McClelland, has recommended the Federal Magistrates Court be merged with the Family Court to simplify family law matters and save money.

The Law Council says the current arrangements are "totally unacceptable" because two courts with largely identical jurisdiction are running separate administrations and competing for funds.

Legal Consultant Des Semple, who wrote the report, says the current system is too confusing.

"What the public wants is a one-stop shop so that when they file, they are filing with one court, and not potentially filing with two courts," Mr Semple said.

"You can circumstances where one of the parties in separation is filing with the Family Court and one is filing with the Federal Magistrates Court, which obvioulsy creates very considerable confusion even before you get down to the matters of the children or the property."

Mr McClelland yesterday said changes do need to be made and the Government is considering the recommendations.

"Virtually all the submissions that came into the inquiry, other than from the Federal Magistrates, was that something had to be done to get around the inefficiencies and confusion, and unfortunately instances of disputation between the two courts," he said.

"So we do have to do something and we're consulting on that."

Related:

Poor pay sees lawyers stop legal aid work
The Law Institute of Victoria is predicting that the state's court system will be overloaded with unrepresented clients because of inadequate funding for legal aid.

Paternity tests prove hundreds of men duped

MOTHERS are being forced to pay back as much as $60,000 to men they wrongly claimed fathered their children following a contentious reform of child support laws.

18 men, cleared by DNA testing, have made use of changes permitting them to claw back funds paid through the Child Support Agency.

More than 300 men have been cleared by DNA of being fathers. Documents obtained under Freedom of Information show orders for $171,567 to be returned have so far been made against the mothers.

Angry women's groups said last night that it would be the children at the centre of the disputes who would suffer most if money were paid back.

[But why should a person pay for someone elses child? Just the thought of the blatant lie would be enought to turn men off.]

The money is being garnisheed from mothers' incomes by the Child Support Agency in the same way that payments are taken from the wages of non-custodial fathers.

In each case the duped men were able to prove beyond doubt in the courts they were not the fathers based on DNA paternity testing.

The new law, section 143 of the Child Support (Assessment) Act, requires the Family Court to consider issuing orders for repayment where paternity is successfully challenged and child support has been paid.

The law allowing such repayment debts to be collected by the Child Support Agency became effective on January 1 last year.

In the biggest case, Queensland man Ken Rodgers obtained orders for the repayment of $60,000 after making child support contributions over a decade to a woman who refused to even send him a photograph of his alleged child.

Quote: Women are like squirrels jumping from one nest to the other and it's about time they paid for the privilege. So don't hang your fanny over the back fence while your husband is at work. There is an easy way to fix the problem for those who can't afford the back payments. Stick with the person you expect to pay for the child or pay for it yourself.

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Most people would say Lady Di got the boot and NSW has so much trouble getting the Innocence Panel moving. I said hey, what's going on!

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Murder charge first for DNA data bank link, but not the same as solving the murder As long as the the prisoners DNA wasn't planted at the crime scene. It is one thing to force prisoners to hand over their DNA and another thing to exploit it.

Researcher warns of shared custody increase

[Firstly this article starts off with this statement from the ABC]:

"Audio: Shared care parenting linked to anxious kids: study (The World Today)"

[But no anxious kids were linked to being separated from both parents right?]

[Now]

A new report into family breakups is warning of a sharp increase in shared custody arrangements, even when [Allegedly] they are not in the best interest of children.

[So I take it by that statement that (shared custody) parenting by the father and mother of the child is not in the interest of the child. Taking into account no other extraordinary factors like sexual assault or violence in the home. Since when?]

Dr Jennifer McIntosh from LaTrobe University says changes to the law in 2006 mean parents who resort to court or mediation to sort out custody battles are now more likely to end up with equal access to their kids.

[Yippee and it is about time. Why do you think they changed the law? To get the opposite result? And why do women hate this so much? Because when they hop of the nest like squirrels to mate with the next richest man that comes by it is not so easy to move into the next state and forget the children had a father. At all material times taking into account that women are more likely than men to leave the marriage or relationship.

Divorce season
Lawyers say women outnumber men two to one when it comes to filing for divorce in the new year. Anne Hollonds, CEO of Relationships Australia, said its phones "run hot" after the Christmas break.]

But Dr Jennifer McIntosh says often those parents are not able to cooperate and communicate well enough to shield their children from ongoing conflict.

[Or pay the rent? or feed themselves? or teach children to tie their shoe lacers? but they do manage regardless don't they?]

"We don't know long-term what the effects of combining shared care with high conflict are, my data shows short-term that these children are far more likely to be fearful, shy, clingy, to be anxious and worried children," she said.

[Oh yes we do know it's called 'normal experience' or 'common sense' and it shows long-term disregard for children that are denied equal access to both parents end up losing a parent and his/her 'extended family' including grandparents, nieces and nephews etc, who care for them all because one was simply denied that access and destroyed any possibility of any type of meaningful relationship with the child. What does that cause Dr?]

Researchers say parents who need to be ordered to have equal custody of their children are probably not equipped to make the arrangement work.

[But they were equipped to have the child? Even when we now know that up to at least three generations of parents don't have social skill to pass on to their own children here in Australia.]

Dr McIntosh says these parents are not often ready to deal with each other in a businesslike manner.

[Because the sovereign family unit is not the government's business or Dr Mcintosh's business. Oh, the Dr would like that to be so and that would make more business for the Dr. who is actually using people as fodder for her victim industry and psychologists who all get well paid to err on the side of the person paying them for their services in the Family Court for solicitors for one party or another in a 'business like profession'.]

"They need a way of sorting out communication, they need a way of cooperating at least passively and of getting on with the business of focusing on their children," she said.

[They need social skills, communication, and conflict resolution skills Dr. And parenting skills at the 'earliest intervention' not after they've had children because by then it is 'too late' to separate them because some Dr thinks they know better than parents do based on the 'prestige of grants from the government'.

Other parents are not the governments business or the Dr's business it's the parents business and both parents have equal rights to their children. And for anyone to argue that that is not the case all the way throughout a child's life, at least up until the age of 16, is running a business and living on government grants.]