There are more than 160 community legal services, spread across all states and territories, that provide mostly free advice and legal services to their communities. These are independent non-profit organisations. Our organisation, Community Legal Centres Australia, does not provide advice or legal services to members of the public. As the national peak body, we represent and support legal services across Australia in their work.

Some of these organisations provide legal assistance to people living in a defined geographic area – these ‘generalist’ services commonly assist people with civil and family law problems, including fines, credit and debt, parenting orders, family violence and child protection, and victim support. There are also ‘specialist’ services that focus on a particular area of law, or a particular demographic.