Why consider community legal centres?
A community legal centres gives legal representation to people who can’t afford private lawyers. NAAFLS is proudly an Aboriginal legal service which means our client base is 100% Aboriginal people who live in the Top End.
Melanie Ralph is a solicitor with NAAFLS and in this short video she talks about why community legal services are imperative in the community as well as the potential for job satisfaction and opportunities for skills development.
“Having community legal services is imperative to being able to provide quality legal services to people who can’t afford it. If we’re going to be honest, people don’t come to lawyers as a first option, people come to lawyers when they’ve run out of options. For people who are disadvantaged in the community, that can be daunting and a lot of people don’t know where to go,” said Melanie.
https://youtu.be/wp2R1gJWuwo
Moving from private practice to community legal services (and back again)
“I’ve seen people come across from private practice and go into community legal spaces and then go back to private practice again. Community legal spaces will give you a variety of complexity and exposure to matters you wouldn’t necessarily see in private practice”.
Incredible skills growth
“If you can work under the complexity and pressure of a community legal centre, then you can pretty much work anywhere. If you’re in private practice and considering coming across, I would say do it!
For more information about joining our team go to our https://naafls.com.au/work-with-us/ page on the website.
