1999 Law Handbook - Community legal centres

Community legal centres

Lawyers' Practice Manual

In partnership with local municipal councils and Victoria Legal Aid, the Faculty of Law is involved with two community legal centres, where legal assistance is provided free to the public. The centres provide help with criminal prosecutions, neighbour disputes, car accidents, traffic prosecutions, tenancy disputes, family and social welfare problems, debt, contract and employment disputes and other problems.
Springvale Legal Service (founded 1975) operates in tandem with the Springvale Community Aid and Advice Bureau. The largest legal service in Victoria in terms of numbers of clients assisted, Springvale Legal Service has also built up a reputation for community development work and innovative public-interest-law activities.
Located since 1979 on the perimeter of Monash University's Clayton campus, Monash-Oakleigh Legal Service grew from a student service to become a major provider of legal assistance to citizens of what is now the City of Monash, and the wider community.
At both legal centres, regular consulting sessions are staffed by senior law students enrolled in the clinical education course as the LLB subject 'Professional practice'. They take responsibility for clients' files and initiate action where required - under the supervision of a faculty staff member who is a legal practitioner. Students may represent clients in court under a supervised student appearance scheme. This blend of learning and service in law provided at Monash was the first of its kind in Australia and has acquired a national and international reputation.

Lawyers' Practice Manual

An initiative through Springvale Legal Service involving several members of the Faculty of Law is the production and regular up-dating of this loose-leaf service to new lawyers. Oriented towards those who provide legal services to the community in legal centres and the like, the manual with its comprehensive coverage of how to cope with most matters likely to arise in practice, has proved a remarkably popular publication.