According to Clayton Utz, there are in excess of 100 HJPs in Australia. Their purpose is to help people in the healthcare system with their legal matters, with health workers connecting patients who need legal assistance with lawyers.

Clayton Utz Foundation chair Marcus Davenport stated: “HJPs make absolute sense, and we’re proud to have helped lay the foundations for HJPs to be embraced as a new way of delivering health and legal services.”

According to Health Justice Australia: “In a practitioner-led movement, community lawyers have been moving out of their offices and into the most unlikely of places – hospitals and community health settings – to collaborate with health services and their patients to address unmet, health-harming legal need.

“Known as health justice partnerships, these collaborations work by embedding legal help into healthcare services and teams. They have formed in response to a growing body of evidence that shows there are groups of people who are vulnerable to intersecting legal and health problems, but who are unlikely to turn to legal services for solutions.”

Clayton Utz has been a long-term supporter of HJPs. It was the recommendation of Clayton Utz’s Foundation fellow Peter Noble, in 2012, that resulted in the creation of Health Justice Australia, a national centre for HJPs.

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According to the firm: “The Clayton Utz Foundation supports organisations that have a strong and meaningful connection to the firm through our pro bono practice, Community Connect (our community involvement program) and the volunteering and fundraising commitments of our partners and employees.”