There were 432,274 clients who received completed legal assistance services funded under the National Legal Assistance Partnership (NLAP) in the 2023-24 financial year, according to data released today by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).
Samantha Hall, ABS head of legal statistics, said: 'The number of legal assistance clients with a completed service rose by one per cent, or 5,344, in the 2023 to 2024 financial year.'
Almost a third (139,193 clients) received more than one service in that year.
In total, 819,370 legal assistance services were completed for clients throughout 2023-24.
'This experimental dataset is a snapshot of the clients receiving services from Legal Aid Commissions, Community Legal Centres and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services. It also looks at the type of assistance clients received.
The most common type of legal assistance was legal advice, which was provided to almost three in four, or 318,765 clients' said Ms Hall.
This data only reports on services from legal service providers that were funded under the NLAP. It does not reflect the complexity of the services or the resources used to deliver them, and shouldn't be reported as such.
The ABS would like to thank the Australian and State and Territory Governments and the legal assistance services sector for their ongoing efforts in creating this second national publication and working to improve the data for future releases.
