Hughes, Camilla --- "Community Legal Workers" [2003] IndigLawB 67; (2003) 5(28) Indigenous Law Bulletin 18

Community Legal Workers

by Camilla Hughes

Top End Women’s Legal Service (‘TEWLS’) is a community legal service based in Darwin, Northern Territory. It runs a program funded by Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Services (‘ATSIS’) called the Aboriginal Women’s Outreach Project which provides legal assistance to Indigenous women in the communities of Wadeye, Kunbarllanjnja, Angurugu and Umbakumba, with a priority given to family violence assistance. Eight Community Legal Workers (‘CLW’s’), an Aboriginal Community Development Worker and two lawyers are employed on the project. TEWLS visits each community every month for 1 - 4 days, with visits timed to coincide with the Magistrates Court circuit.

TEWLS employs two local women in each of the remote Indigenous communities we work in. There are many advantages of this model.

Community Legal Workers contribute a wealth of knowledge. They know their way around the community and where different families and clients live. With no street names, house numbers or telephones, this is essential knowledge. CLW’s can advise if it is not a good time to visit the community, for example there are funerals, ceremonies or riots happening. CLW’s know a lot about each family; about genealogies and family history - valuable knowledge with family violence or family law work. CLW’s are able to assess the potential for violence in a given situation, either for clients or other TEWLS workers. For example, she might advise: “we need to fly client x out right now”, or “don’t approach client x now, her husband is over there” or “don’t talk to the defendant by yourself”.

Community Legal Workers interpret for town staff, both as language and cultural interpreters. English is not widely spoken in any community we visit. CLW’s know a lot about the social and political dynamics of their community, and current tensions. They can convey local views and perspectives on family violence. By employing CLW’s TEWLS provides some employment and the community sees local people working on our project.

Clients may be more likely to approach a local worker to discuss her problems. Other clients will avoid community legal workers for reasons of privacy, but it is good to offer clients that choice.

In family violence work it often works well to have a small team of lawyer/Aboriginal Community Development Worker/Community Legal Workers, rather than one-on-one with clients. Clients are put at ease and the interactions and humour help to diffuse tensions.

Challenges

There are not too many degrees of separation (if any) between the Indigenous residents of a remote community. A CLW is not able to assist other TEWLS workers with every family conflict. She may be related to the victim or to the perpetrator, in fact she almost certainly will be. So very often a complex assessment must be carried out: how is the CLW related to the parties and how may she be appropriately involved as a TEWLS worker. This may be difficult as the CLW will have knowledge about the relevant relationships and the TEWLS lawyer flying in from Darwin will have knowledge about ethical considerations such as conflict of interest, but neither has both sets of knowledge.

Family violence is widespread in the communities TEWLS works in and the CLW’s will often be closely affected by violence. Their husbands or boyfriends may be violent. Obviously TEWLS wants to assist employees in these situations but it does pose ethical and policy dilemmas. It is difficult to be in an employer/employee and a solicitor/client relationship simultaneously. Yet there may be no other lawyer for hundreds or even thousands of kilometres available to represent the legal worker in restraining order proceedings. TEWLS has had to develop appropriate policies: in short, we assist CLW’s with evacuations, restraining orders and other urgent family violence assistance and other legal work we try to refer out.

Each community is made up of several clan or family groups. Wadeye for example has six distinct camp areas where related family groups live. Ideally TEWLS would employ a legal worker from each camp, but resources permit only two. Naturally enough, CLW’s will tend to refer clients from their own extended family. Other families may miss out and it can lead to community dissatisfaction with the distribution of scarce legal resources. Community legal workers may even go as far as discounting the legal problems of women from other families or trying to restrict their access to TEWLS assistance.

Community legal workers need training in legal processes and concepts. No institution or registered trainers in the Northern Territory provide suitable training and therefore TEWLS has had to develop and deliver its own training packages. It is very expensive to bring CLW’s from different communities into Darwin for training. We try to hold at least two training sessions each year at a cost of $5,000 - $10,000 each (for out of pocket expenses only, human resources have not been costed).

General levels of health and well being are not high in the communities we travel to. TEWLS community legal workers regularly suffer health problems that affect their availability for work. CLW’s also have to deal with their family’s health problems. For example a CLW may not be able to work a particular month as she has to accompany a relative into Royal Darwin Hospital or her children may be unwell. In general the CLW’s do not have robust health and find it difficult to work a full day intensively in the community or be attentive for a full day of training.

Conclusion

It is essential to the success of TEWLS’ family violence program that we employ local women as community legal workers. Undeniably however, the CLW model throws up a constant barrage of practical, ethical and policy challenges. We try to deal with the challenges by keeping remote/town lines of communication open, ongoing training, problem solving and policy development. And large amounts of very strong, very sweet tea.

Camilla Hughes is the Principal Solicitor at Top End Women’s Legal Service. Thank you to fellow staff members Angela Dowling (Coordinator) and Tricia Brennan (Solicitor) for their contribution of ideas and comments.