Red Wine for Justice: now on Friday, 18 February 2022

If a year’s delay improved the Olympics, how magnificent will a rescheduled Red Wine for Justice be? So many fundraising records to break! All the beautiful donated wines will be cellared and all tickets are valid for 2022. Registrations for additional tickets will open later this year. For those who would prefer a refund for existing bookings, please email us.

Red Wine for Justice will support our financial counsellor service which helps women leaving violent relationships to resolve debt, establish budgets and access entitlements. Increased financial literacy and security can change the trajectory of a survivor’s life and children.

Regina is a young mother whose experience of family violence prevented her returning to work or managing daily routines. She connected to LawRight at a women’s crisis accommodation service. Pro bono lawyers helped Regina secure victim compensation and a safe tenancy. They also worked with our Financial Counsellor to resolve Regina’s “sexually transmitted” debts (for her partner’s fines and electricity usage), access the correct Centrelink benefit and plan a budget. Regina has now settled into a secure tenancy with her children, armed with skills to maintain financial stability.

LawRight secondments have strengthened pro bono across Queensland for almost 20 years. Since Carla Klease from Blake Dawson Waldron (now Ashurst) was deployed in July 2002 to establish the Homeless Persons’ Legal Clinic, secondees have increased LawRight’s impact. Allens and McCullough Robertson provided a series of secondments to our fledgling referrals service from September 2003, to undertake case assessments and match eligible clients with participating firms and barristers.

Two decades of LawRight secondments

A 2004 Allens secondee helped establish our Rural Regional Remote project to strengthen statewide pro bono, leading to regional offices in Townsville, Toowoomba and Cairns. We helped Clayton Utz second a lawyer to the Hervey Bay Community Legal Centre in 2007 and LawRight’s support for this regional centre still continues.

MinterEllison provided a secondment to the Homeless Persons’ Legal Clinic in December 2003 and for over a decade since, helping to establish new services including phone-based legal outreach to outer metropolitan Brisbane where homelessness often “begins”.

Corrs Chambers Westgarth commenced a secondment program with LawRight in 2008, providing a full-time lawyer to assess our referrals to member firms and barristers. Since 2017 Corrs secondees have been placed in the State Courts office of Court & Tribunal Services.

“Corrs secondees dramatically increase the capacity of the State Courts office. We now offer more client appointments and can offer more intensive help with complex Supreme Court and Court of Appeal proceedings. The consistent support from Corrs has also given us confidence to establish new programs from this office”.
Ben Tuckett, Managing Lawyer, LawRight Court & Tribunal Services.

DLA Piper, Norton Rose Fulbright, Sparke Helmore and TressCox Lawyers (now HWL Ebsworth) have all provided short term secondments during times of high demand.

LawRight currently hosts three secondees:

Hall & Wilcox to Mental Health Legal Practice – Georgia Gamble
Corrs Chambers Westgarth to Court & Tribunal Services (State Courts) – Hugo Oates
Colin Biggers & Paisley to Court & Tribunal Services (QCAT) – Jacob Currie

Later this year, we’ll welcome secondees from MinterEllison to the Community & Health Justice partnerships team and from new members DWF to Court &Tribunal Services (State Courts).

Thank you to all these firms for their outstanding support.