The legal aid warning that refuses to go away

The findings, published in February 2025 and reported by Lawyers Weekly, raised serious questions about the sustainability of a system that relies heavily on private practitioners to represent some of the country’s most vulnerable people.

More than 18 months later, two lawyers who spoke publicly about the financial pressures facing the sector have confirmed that they are now undertaking less legal aid work.

Kymberlei Goodacre (pictured), principal solicitor at Coffs Harbour-based Coffs Law Co, has substantially reduced her caseload, stopped accepting legally aided property matters and temporarily ceased taking on independent children’s lawyer appointments.

In Western Australia, Platinum Legal’s Ann Korzeniecka has stopped accepting new legal aid files, although she continues to undertake some conflict work.

Neither practitioner has abandoned legal aid entirely, but both have reduced their involvement, citing financial pressures that have persisted since the census.

Legal Aid NSW, meanwhile, reports a 33 per cent increase in panel membership over the past five years, including a 1.8 per cent rise in panel law practices in the latest financial year. The agency acknowledges the financial pressures facing private practitioners and says it is working to address regional shortages through training and remote representation initiatives.

VIEW ALL

The figures point to growing panel participation, although they do not establish whether individual lawyers are accepting more or fewer matters.

With the next national census results still pending, the experiences of those who have reduced their workloads offer an early indication of how the pressures identified in 2024 are playing out.

The warning signs

The 2024 National Legal Aid Private Practitioner Census drew responses from 1,010 practitioners and examined the pressures affecting their willingness to continue undertaking legally aided work.

The research highlighted concerns about remuneration, workload and the long-term sustainability of private practitioner involvement in the legal assistance sector.

Those concerns were significant given the reliance of legal aid commissions on private lawyers, who undertake more than 70 per cent of legal aid grants nationally.

When the findings were released, Goodacre and Korzeniecka were among the practitioners whose experiences featured in National Legal Aid’s announcement.

Both remained committed to legal aid work, despite acknowledging that privately funded matters offered substantially greater financial returns.

To establish how those concerns have played out since the census, Lawyers Weekly spoke with Goodacre and Korzeniecka about their current workloads, the financial pressures facing their practices and whether they are any closer to withdrawing from legal aid work altogether.

Their responses suggest that maintaining that commitment has become increasingly difficult alongside the practical demands of running a legal practice.

For Goodacre, the change has been substantial.

“I am taking on vastly less Legal Aid work than I was when the census was released, and there are now two related reasons for that,” she said.

“The first is the financial viability of undertaking Legal Aid work. The second, and increasingly significant, is the reduction in eligibility for Legal Aid announced by Legal Aid NSW.”

Goodacre said the cost of delivering legally aided services remained a significant obstacle for a small regional practice.

“The financial reality is that Legal Aid work is comprehensively underfunded. The remuneration does not reflect the actual cost of delivering a quality legal service,” she said.

Goodacre no longer accepts legally aided property matters and has paused independent children’s lawyer appointments pending greater clarity from the court about the effect of restricted funding on personal appointments.

“I no longer undertake Legal Aid property matters because the funding available was never adequate for the work required,” she said.

“More broadly, I have vastly reduced the Legal Aid work I undertake. That is not because the need has diminished. It is because we have an obligation to provide a quality legal service to every client we accept,” Goodacre said.

“If the funding does not support the time and resources required to do that properly, I cannot responsibly continue to take on the same volume of work.”

Goodacre’s concern extends beyond the difference between legal aid fees and private rates. She argues that the funding available does not adequately reflect the resources needed to provide quality representation.

For a small regional practice, each legally aided matter also requires weighing the cost of delivering quality representation against the broader demands of running the business.

Goodacre said she considers stopping legal aid work altogether on a daily basis.

“I keep going because I cannot sit back and watch vulnerable families in danger,” she said.

A commitment under pressure

While Goodacre has substantially reduced the types and volume of legally aided matters she accepts, Korzeniecka has also scaled back her involvement, although her decision reflects a combination of financial and professional considerations.

“I am undertaking less. I haven’t taken any new files, but I have done [a] small amount of conflict work,” she said.

“Having said this, I also haven’t returned any files, they have just come to an end.”

Korzeniecka said she had moved closer to stopping legal aid work altogether, partly because she was seeking a better work/life balance while managing responsibilities within her firm, including teaching and mentoring junior lawyers.

The financial pressures identified in the earlier census have not eased.

“The financial viability has not improved, I am afraid,” she said.

Asked what continued to motivate her involvement, Korzeniecka pointed to community service.

“A sense of obligation to community service. If lots of private practitioners were able just take a few grants, it would assist the community and access to justice,” she said.

Asked whether she was seeing other practitioners reduce or stop undertaking legal aid work, her response was unequivocal.

“Definitely,” she said.

Korzeniecka and Goodacre’s experiences illustrate how a reduction in legally aided work can occur without a practitioner formally withdrawing from the system.

They also raise questions about whether panel membership alone provides a complete picture of the workforce available to undertake legal aid matters.

What the participation figures show

Legal Aid NSW’s response provides an important perspective on practitioner participation.

According to chief executive Monique Hitter, the agency has recorded growth in panel membership over the past five years.

“There has been an overall increase in Legal Aid NSW panel membership of 33 per cent over the last five years,” Hitter said.

“This financial year saw a 1.8 per cent increase in the total number of panel law practices from the last financial year, with all panel types recording an increase in membership.”

Both figures point to growing participation, although neither reveals how much work those practitioners are undertaking.

Lawyers Weekly asked Legal Aid NSW about changes in practitioner participation and the amount of work undertaken since 2024, including in regional areas. The agency provided membership figures but did not supply corresponding data on changes in individual workloads or overall matter volumes.

Consequently, the figures cannot establish whether the concerns identified in the census have translated into a broader reduction in the amount of legal aid work being undertaken.

Hitter acknowledged the challenges facing private practitioners, particularly smaller firms operating in regional communities.

“We recognise the challenges facing private practitioners in doing legal aid work. We also are aware of challenges especially for small firms in regional areas,” she said.

“Legal Aid NSW acknowledges the critical role private practitioners play in the delivery of legal aid across NSW.”

Where local practitioner shortages arise, Legal Aid NSW said it uses a combination of in-house solicitors, private practitioners and technology, including audiovisual facilities, to help maintain access to representation.

Its participation figures are not necessarily inconsistent with the experiences of Goodacre and Korzeniecka. More lawyers can join a panel while others reduce the number of matters they accept.

The extent to which that is occurring across the broader workforce remains unclear.

The cost of delivering legal aid

Beyond the question of how many lawyers remain on legal aid panels is the financial reality of the work itself – a challenge Legal Aid NSW readily acknowledges.

“Legal Aid NSW acknowledges that fees paid to private practitioners are well below commercial rates,” Hitter said.

“We also recognise the challenges faced by private practitioners in the current economic environment.”

The agency pointed to a commitment by the Standing Council of Attorneys-General to review the private lawyer model, which it said was expected to progress in 2027.

The council agreed to the national review in November 2025, with the work to be undertaken before the next national partnership agreement in 2030.

Legal Aid NSW also pointed to the inclusion of legal aid private practitioners in the Commonwealth Attorney-General’s Department’s workforce baseline survey.

The planned review presents an opportunity to examine remuneration and the sustainability of the current model, although its timing means practitioners already reconsidering their workloads face a further period of uncertainty.

For Goodacre, however, the question is not simply whether legal aid fees should increase, but whether the funding model adequately reflects the cost of delivering quality representation.

“This is not simply a matter of increasing individual rates. The private practitioner model was never adequately funded in the first place,” she said.

“We need to properly establish what it costs to deliver quality Legal Aid services, particularly in regional practices, and fund those services accordingly.”

Goodacre is sceptical that incremental changes will be sufficient.

“A box of Band-Aids will not fix a broken funding model, and the box is either increasingly empty or so many Band-Aids are needed we’ve run out!” she said.

For Korzeniecka, financial viability remains a consideration alongside her other professional commitments.

In both cases, the concerns that prompted their involvement in the original census have continued to influence how much legal aid work they undertake.

A change in who qualifies

Alongside the financial pressures affecting practitioners, recent changes to Legal Aid NSW’s family law eligibility policies have altered the number of people expected to qualify for representation.

Goodacre said the restrictions had become an increasingly significant factor in her decision to reduce legally aided work.

“The need for legal assistance certainly has not reduced. What has changed is the number of people who are able to access that assistance through Legal Aid,” she said.

Goodacre reported seeing families facing significant legal difficulties, including circumstances involving family violence and children, who may no longer qualify for funding.

Legal Aid NSW said the changes were designed to direct limited public funding towards those with the greatest legal need and that it was monitoring their impact.

“Legal Aid NSW estimates that under the family law eligibility changes around 25 per cent of people previously eligible for legal aid representation will no longer be eligible,” Hitter said.

The estimate applies specifically to family law representation, rather than legal aid across all jurisdictions. It concerns eligibility, not a measured reduction in the number of people actually receiving representation.

Nevertheless, the projected exclusion of around one in four previously eligible applicants is substantial, particularly for people unable to afford private legal services.

Goodacre argued that the changes create a separate access-to-justice concern: some people who need representation may no longer qualify for public funding, regardless of whether a practitioner is available to assist them.

While distinct from the financial pressures affecting private practitioners, the eligibility changes also influence the availability of publicly funded representation.

The regional challenge

The availability of experienced practitioners is particularly important in regional and remote communities, where clients may have fewer alternatives when a local lawyer stops accepting legally aided matters.

Goodacre highlighted the care and protection jurisdiction as an area of particular concern, noting such proceedings can involve decisions about children’s safety, family reunification and parental care, often in circumstances involving significant vulnerability and trauma.

Goodacre said the shortage of locally based lawyers could make it difficult for parents and children to obtain representation that adequately reflects their circumstances.

“This is what market failure looks like in practice: a parent can be involved in proceedings that may determine whether their child can be safely returned to their care, yet there may be no locally based Legal Aid-funded solicitor available to represent them,” she said.

In addition, Goodacre argued that the ability to meet clients in person was particularly important when representing children.

“The answer cannot simply be to allocate matters to lawyers hundreds of kilometres away,” she said.

“That may technically provide representation, but it does not necessarily provide meaningful access to quality legal services.”

Legal Aid NSW acknowledged the continuing shortage of care and protection practitioners in regional and remote areas.

“Legal Aid NSW acknowledges the ongoing shortage of care and protection panel practitioners continues to present a challenge, particularly in remote and regional areas,” Hitter said.

The agency pointed to its Remote Preferred Provider scheme, which helps provide representation where locally based practitioners may be unavailable.

It also highlighted the Care and Protection Professional Development Initiative, which provides intensive training and mentoring to lawyers who would otherwise be ineligible to join the care and protection panel.

Initially piloted in New England, the Northern Rivers and Orange, the initiative has expanded to Dubbo and Coffs Harbour.

Legal Aid NSW said the program had increased the number of private lawyers undertaking care and protection work in its pilot locations.

These measures are intended to develop additional practitioner capacity in areas where shortages have been identified.

Goodacre nevertheless believes remote representation cannot always replace the benefits of having an experienced lawyer based in the community.

“A justice system cannot be regarded as accessible simply because a lawyer can be found somewhere in NSW,” she said.

“In the care and protection jurisdiction, meaningful access to justice requires lawyers who can be present, accessible and able to properly understand the lives of the children and families they represent.”

What happens next?

The next national private practitioner census should provide a broader picture of how participation has changed since the warnings raised in 2024.

Until those findings are released, the experiences of Goodacre and Korzeniecka cannot establish whether the number of lawyers undertaking legal aid work has declined nationally. Equally, Legal Aid NSW’s growing panel membership does not, on its own, establish how much work those practitioners are undertaking.

The agency has outlined measures to address regional shortages and acknowledged the financial pressures affecting the private practitioners on whom the system relies.

For Goodacre, however, the consequences of those pressures are already evident in her practice.

“The census was a warning. The changes in my own practice since then demonstrate that the issues identified have not gone away, they have increasingly affected the amount of work I am able to provide,” she said.

Legal Aid NSW also acknowledged the limits of its current capacity.

“Unfortunately, the demand for legal services is greater than our ability to meet this demand,” Hitter said.

More than 18 months after the original findings were published, the question is not simply whether lawyers are leaving legal aid. It is how much work those who remain can sustainably undertake – and whether that is enough to meet the needs of the people relying on them.