Table of contents
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Table of contents
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1 – Introduction
- Victoria Legal Aid services
- Handbook overview
- National Commonwealth legal aid guidelines
- 2 – Types of matters that may be assisted
- 3 – Criminal law guidelines
- 4 – Commonwealth family law and child support guidelines
- 5 – Commonwealth civil law guidelines
- 6 – State family guidelines
- 7 – State civil law guidelines
- 8 – Public interest and strategic litigation
- 9 – Standard grants assessment process
- 10 – Simplified grants assessment process
- 11 – Referral and practitioner panels
- 12 – Means test
- 13 – Commonwealth merits test
- 14 – State reasonableness test and interests of justice test
- 15 – Special circumstances
- 16 – Applying for a grant of legal assistance
- 17 – Decision to grant or refuse assistance
- 18 – Reconsideration and review of decisions
- 19 – Standard terms and conditions
- 20 – Contributions and overdue payments
- 21 – Abandoning legal assistance
- 22 – Finalising grants of legal assistance
- 23 – Allocation of work to lawyers and law firms
- 24 – Payments to lawyers and service providers
- 25 – Compliance reviews
- 26 – Privacy protection
- 27 – Complaints and feedback
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1 – Introduction
- Topic index
- Invoice, worksheets and forms
- Contact us
Victoria Legal Aid services
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, publications and workshops
- alternative dispute resolution in family law matters through Roundtable Dispute Management
- duty lawyers at the Magistrates’ Courts, the Children’s Court, the Mental Health Review Board, 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.