Find legal help

What can community legal centres help with?

Community Legal Centres Australia does not provide direct legal services to members the public. As a peak body, we represent and support more than 170 community-based legal services across Australia.  

Community legal centres are independent, not-for-profit, community-based organisations that give free legal assistance to people who need it most, particularly people experiencing financial hardship, disadvantage, discrimination, and domestic and family violence. Centres mostly assist with civil and family law problems. Some offer help with a limited types of criminal law matters. 

Some services provide general legal assistance to people living in a defined geographic area. ‘Generalist’ services commonly assist people with civil and family law problems, including fines, credit and debt, parenting orders, family violence and child protection, and victims’ support. 

Some services specialise in a specific area of law, like: 

  • anti-discrimination law 
  • consumer, credit, and insurance law 
  • employment law 
  • environmental law 
  • immigration law 
  • social security law 
  • tenancy law 

Others provide general civil and family law services to specific groups of people in the community, like: 

  • Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people 
  • children and young people 
  • LGBTQI+ people 
  • older people 
  • people with disability 
  • people experiencing homelessness,  
  • refugees, and asylum seekers and  
  • women. 

Find a community legal centre near you

You can use the tools and links below to find organisations in your area that may be able to assist you with a legal problem. 

State and territory directories

ACT Association of Community Legal Centres

Click here to find help in the ACT

Community Legal Centres NSW

Click here to find help in NSW

Community Legal Centres QLD

Click here to find help in Queensland

Community Legal Centres South Australia

Click here to find help in South Australia

Community Legal Centres Tasmania

Click here to find help in Tasmania

Federation of Community Legal Centre VIC

Click here to find help in Victoria

Northern Territory Association of Community Legal Centres

Click here to find help in the NT

National service directory

You can use this online tool to search for: 

  • Contact details for a centre anywhere in Australia that you know the name of 
  • Centres across Australia that can assist with a specific type of legal problem (like a tenancy problem, a family law problem or domestic and family violence). 

 

Type the centre’s name or the type of service you are looking for into the search function and press enter to get your search results.