This podcast was recorded on the country of the Gadigal people of the Eora nation. We pay our respects to Elders past and present. As we gather for Law Week may we recognise the law, education and storytelling that has been practised on these lands for 10s of 1000s of years, always was, always will be.
This is spotlight, a mini series where we shine a light on some of the best events and activities happening in Law Week 2022. My name is Yasmine and I'm a content creator with Legal Aid New South Wales, one of the partners of Law Week. New South Wales Law Week is an annual festival that is all about creating greater access to justice. This year's Law Week takes place between the 16th and 22nd of May. There are heaps of events happening across the state, online and in person to help you understand your rights, the law, the legal system and the legal profession. You can find out what's on via the events schedule at Law Week nsw.org.au. Today in the spotlight, we have Hume Riverina community legal service. We chat to Debbie about their wide reaching services and their key events happening for Law Week. 2022. Thanks for joining me on the podcast today. Deb, can you please introduce yourself and your role?
Hi, it's great to be here. Thanks for inviting us along. Yeah, my name is Debbie Fisher, and I'm acting principal lawyer of the Hume Riverina community legal service.
And could you tell us about your service and what services you provide?
Sure, we actually are a cross border service. So we provide free legal advice and assistance to 17 local government areas on both sides of the Victorian and New South Wales border. We have two teams of lawyers with 17 staff in total. And our two teams are the family law and family violence team and then the generalist legal team
fantastic and who can access your service?
So we're open to anyone in the community in our catchment area. And we have a focus on helping the most vulnerable in our community with their everyday legal problems. As I said, we actually place a lot of emphasis on going out into the community and meeting people where they're at, and also working in partnership with other community organisations.
Great and this podcast is for Law Week, we're chatting to different services about their events and activities for this week. What events and activities do you have planned for Law Week?
Law Week's actually a really important time for us, we love the opportunity to sort of make a little bit of a celebration of the law and those involved in the law and legal system. So but the highlight for us is always our women in law breakfast, which is actually on this Thursday. And it's a great opportunity for local lawyers and others involved or interested in the law just to get together, have coffee and a bite to eat and listen to some really interesting speakers. So this year, we're really excited to have Melbourne barrister Amanda Storey as our guest speaker, Amanda was the Director of Legal Practice at the Consumer Action Law Centre. Which is a state Victorian statewide service that provides legal advice for consumer credit and debt matters. So she was doing that before she went to the bar a couple of years ago. And she is passionate about advocating for the rights and protection of vulnerable consumers.
So we're really looking forward to having her come and have brekkie with us and have a chat about her experienc,e her history and what she's loves about working in the law. So that's probably our our key event. But we also have special law by telephone advice sessions, with two of those sessions being available for bushfire affected people. So we are funded to provide services for those who were affected by the 2020 bush fires and even two years after, we're still seeing people with insurance, credit family law, family violence issues which were either arose from or made worse by bushfires, and obviously exacerbated by COVID over the last couple of years. So we're grateful to have that opportunity to provide those special sessions for those in the bushfire affected areas, as well as our normal advice sessions.
So it's a really good time if anyone's had something that they're concerned about or don't know what they should be, what their options are with a problem that low weeks is a good opportunity just to get in touch and grab a free advice session and find out what you might be able to do about your issue. And today actually, we also have a zoom Legal Health Check session for community workers. So that's just a training session that goes for about an hour to help those working with the community to be able to spot and identify those everyday civil legal problems that people don't always understand have a legal fix. So that sessions on this afternoon and people can still register via our website or our Facebook page if they're interested in coming along.
Really important events happening all week. It sounds like the new week. Yeah, super busy. But really, really important. How can people find out about these events?
So they can pop on to our website, which is just hate hrcls.org.au, or hop onto the Facebook page. On Twitter, we have a Twitter handle as well. And all our information is available on our newsletter, which you can access via any of those ways.
Perfect. And we'll also put some links to those in the show notes for this episode as well. And you've really already covered why people should attend your events. But in general, why should people get involved in Law Week?
I think it's a really good opportunity to find out more about the law, which often there are barriers for people in accessing legal help or in understanding the law. And Law Week is just an opportunity for not just community legal services, but for all lawyers to come out from their offices and behind their desks and spend time in the community and talking to people about what it means to work in the law. And I think for the community to take advantage of all of the different events that are available all around the country to just understand how the legal system works, and perhaps that it's not quite as scary as people think it can be sometimes.
yeah, totally getting that, you know, taking that first step to get legal advice and help does seem a bit intimidating for people, but law week's, you know, able to make it a bit more accessible and easier, like you said, to know where to get that help. And I like that of you know, lawyers getting out of their offices away from their desks and talking to people and sharing that knowledge. That's right. If you could describe Law Week in one word, what would it be?
Oh, that's an interesting one to try and bring it down to one word lawyers are not known for their brevity. I probably say community because for us, that's what law week is all about. It's about bringing the community and the law together.
Absolutely. And you've already chatted a little bit about your service. What's something that people may not know about your service?
Well, again, I think one of the things that's really important about our particular service is that we are a cross border service. So for us for people living in the Albury Wodonga area in particular, you know, the border is irrelevant in everyday life, and but the practicality is for accessing services, it can be really problematic. So I think it's really important for people to know, in Albury Wodonga, but also all the way along the border, that to access our service, it doesn't matter what side of the border you're on. It doesn't matter which side your legal problem arose in, we can provide that advice and assistance.
How can someone find out more about your service?
Well, as I said before, we are on social media. So we have a Facebook page. And we're also on Twitter. And if you just search for Hume Riverina legal service, you'll come up with us. And we also have our website and a newsletter that people can subscribe to as well.
Excellent. So plenty of ways to find out more. And we really look forward to all the activities that you have planned for Law Week and all the best. And thanks so much for chatting to me today.
Great. Thanks for having me.
That's all for spotlight today. Thank you again to Hume Riverina community legal service and Debbie for taking the time to chat to us. I'd also like to thank Marrickville Legal Centre, the State Library of New South Wales' Find Legal Answers and Tenants Union New South Wales for supporting this podcast and Law Week New South Wales. That was the final episode in this mini series. We thank you for listening and joining us for Law Week. 2022. We look forward to being back next year. We hope you've had a great Law Week.
