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Legal Aid NSW responds to allegations of racism
The largest legal aid commission in Australia has responded to last night’s (7 June) 7.30 investigation, in which multiple lawyers accused the government-funded body of racism and discrimination.
Simon Levett
In an interview with ABC’s 7.30, allegations were made by employees of Legal Aid that they had been the victim of racism whilst working at Legal Aid. The ABC has found that “the government-funded Legal Aid agency in NSW has been accused of racism and discrimination by a number of its own employees”.
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The ABC said that “7.30 has spoken to 20 current and former employees from Indigenous and culturally diverse backgrounds who said they had felt racially targeted while working at Legal Aid. Their main concern is that racism has had a significant impact on their mental health and their career progression.”
Importantly, the ABC was told that “over the past six years, at least 23 culturally diverse staff have left the organisation, in what some have described as an exodus”.
In a statement, Legal Aid responded “that it does not tolerate discrimination and treats any such allegations seriously”.
Legal Aid emphasised that “the cultural, physical and psychological safety of our staff and clients is of paramount importance. Racism in any form is harmful and unacceptable.”
Legal Aid stated that “we are absolutely committed to do this work and to stamp out racism, unacceptable behaviour and discrimination in every form and provide accessible and culturally safe service to all our clients. We have started on this journey and we will continue to focus all our energies to this.”
Legal Aid had developed comprehensive policies to address racism in the workplace in addition to legal liabilities. Legal Aid stated that “our focus is on raising awareness of our firm stance against racism and other unacceptable behaviour, and the availability of avenues for raising complaints, which included the launch of a new unacceptable behaviour policy in February this year and in May, launched the Legal Aid NSW Aboriginal Cultural Safety Framework to continue our efforts in ensuring we are creating a culturally safe environment for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to work and access our services”.
Legal Aid continued, “the Private Lawyer Quality Standards Unit (PLQS) is a dedicated unit within Legal Aid NSW that monitors the quality of legal aid work conducted by private lawyers on our panels and investigates complaints. These complaints may be raised by clients, members of the judiciary, support workers or other lawyers.”
Legal Aid concluded, “PLQS has a complaints-handling process that is informed by best-practice standards set out by the NSW Ombudsman and guided by the Legal Aid NSW complaint-handling policy. In some circumstances we may refer complaints to the Office of the Legal Services Commissioner. PLQS Quality Management Guidelines are set out in detail on our website. The complaints-handling process followed by PLQS prioritises procedural fairness and is designed to be efficient, responsive and respectful.”
