Victoria’s privilege laws must catch up with integrated legal assistance

People using violence can affect every part of a victim-survivor’s life including their safety, home, children, wellbeing, finances, or visa.  

That’s why our lawyers, social workers and financial counsellors work together to support the women and non-binary who come to us for help – a feature of our service that Women’s Legal clients tell us is essential to their engagement in the legal process and ultimate recovery.  

We’ve told the Victorian Law Reform Commission’s inquiry into legal privilege and integrated legal assistance services that the state’s laws should be updated to protect the work and conversations we have as a team with clients, so that a person can get all the help they need through a one-stop-shop model without undermining legal privilege.

Legal privilege allows people to keep their conversations confidential. It is a fundamental right in traditional models of legal assistance and should be extended for services that are working to address a client’s needs.  

We have also supported applying protections to privilege in partnership-based integrated services, where professionals work together across different organisations, so clients receive the same protections regardless of the service structure.