Annual Impact Report
Understanding our work, our wins, and our impact
“Right now, the rising needs of our community call for a robust, coordinated social justice response.”
The Hon. Marcia Neave AO
Chair of the Board, Justice Connect
As compounding crises escalate, the strength of our collective legal response becomes more important than ever.
Justice Connect continues to be a trusted source of legal help for thousands of people across the country, helping individuals, organisations, and community workers address legal issues, prevent future ones, and strengthen the legal system as a whole.
In our Annual Impact Report 2022-23, we take a moment to evaluate our impact, and celebrate our wins and achievements of the past year.
Read our Annual Impact Report 2022-23In previous years, our Annual Report and Impact Report were published separately. This year, we have chosen to combine them into our inaugural Annual Impact Report, acknowledging that Justice Connect’s activities, stories, results, and insights are inextricably linked.
Below, you can explore a snapshot of what our passionate team achieved in FY23. We are proud to share insights into what our clients say about our work, and how our services, training, and tools are increasing access to legal support and processing social justice.
We delivered more specialised legal supports in the face of the housing crisis
As our community’s housing and cost of living crises intensify, demand for Justice Connect’s services rises alongside it. Our specialist Homeless Law team has met this rising need, increasing access to integrated and digital legal supports for people facing homelessness across Victoria.
We simplified Australia’s fundraising laws for thousands of charities
The ability for a charity to fundraise can directly affect its impact in the community. After over 10 years of advocacy, we reached a milestone of national importance when the Commonwealth, State, and Territory Governments committed to implementing a nationally consistent approach to charity fundraising.
We brought pro bono technology to more countries across the world
Our Pro Bono Portal is revolutionising the pro bono landscape in Australia and beyond by connecting unmet legal need with pro bono capacity. Its reach and impact continues to grow, year on year.
We looked at the experience of pro bono lawyers in our network
Each quarter, we produce a ‘deep-dive’ evaluation report to better understand our data and draw actionable insights from it. In Q1 FY23, we looked at the value provided by our partner network of 10,000 pro bono lawyers, the experience these lawyers had with Justice Connect, and the outcomes they achieved for our clients.
We supported Local Aboriginal Land Councils
Since 2016, our Not-for-profit Law team has been delivering the Local Aboriginal Land Council Service, providing targeted, practical, and culturally appropriate free legal assistance to the 120 Local Aboriginal Land Councils (LALCs) across NSW.
We strengthened our community and pro bono partnerships to responsively address homelessness
Preventing and ending homelessness requires a coordinated, systems-level response. That’s why we prioritise our strong, embedded community and pro bono partnerships and a rigorous approach to outreach, so people experiencing or at risk of homelessness in Victoria can get earlier access to specialised help.
We catered to not-for-profits’ needs with co-designed tools
Under immense pressure to serve their communities, not-for-profit organisations are relying on us for free legal support more than ever. Our online self-help tools are a crucial way we can assist more small-to-medium not-for-profits at scale.
We encouraged more older people to proactively plan for their later years
As Australia’s ageing population grows, the prevalence of elder abuse also grows. Preventing financial elder abuse begins with people thinking proactively about what they want for their older age, and putting documents in place to ensure those wishes can be enforced.
Our co-designed Conversation Guides facilitate these conversations by presenting common questions for people to think about so they can protect their rights, interests, and dignity as they age.
We provided free technology to CLCs to respond to disasters
When disasters occur, communities need a swift, coordinated legal response. That’s why we are contributing to building a more connected, empowered, and responsive disaster legal assistance system with our Pro Bono Portal: a technology driven system to match unmet legal need with the capacity of our network of 10,000 pro bono lawyers.
In FY23, we opened the Portal to Community Legal Centres (CLCs) across NSW and VIC, to facilitate an on-the-ground local-first response. Our in-house disaster response team also made 63 referrals to our network of firms via the Portal.
We integrated healthcare and legal help to better protect older people
To ensure financial elder abuse is identified and addressed, lawyers need to be accessible in places that older people already access and trust.
Through our pioneering Health Justice Partnership model for older community members, we embed specialist lawyers in acute and community-based healthcare services. We train healthcare professionals to identify signs of elder abuse early, and build targeted pathways to legal support, so older Australians’ rights, assets, and wellbeing are protected.
Understanding our work, our wins, and our impact
There’s plenty more to explore in our full Annual Impact Report 2022-23.
Read our previous reports
We need your help to sustain this progress
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