Changes to collect additional data for family violence legal services

We are making changes to our application form for grants of legal assistance for family violence matters to collect more detailed data about legally aided services.

From 11 April 2022, Victoria Legal Aid staff and private and community legal centre lawyers on our family violence panel will notice the changes in the application form in ATLAS.

These changes do not represent a widening of eligibility but they will enable us to better evaluate family violence duty lawyer services.

There are two main changes in the ATLAS form:

• On the ‘Matters’ page, when you select ‘family violence’ from the matters group drop-down box, there will be new matter types to select from.
• On the ‘Court Hearings’ page, under ‘Which court/tribunal do you have to go to?’ there will be an option to select ‘Specialist FV Court’ from the drop-down options. This option should be selected where your client’s family violence matter is listed at a Specialist Family Violence Court.

These new matters type do not signify a change of eligibility criteria and you should continue to assess applications for grants of legal assistance against Guideline 6 – family violence protection order cases.

The changes have been driven by the introduction of new duty lawyer guidelines at Specialist Family Violence Court locations, but they apply to all family violence grants of legal assistance.

By collecting more granular data we can better evaluate the impact of the new guidelines and all legally aided services.

More information

If you require further guidance regarding the application of the guidelines to your family violence matter, you can contact the Grants and Quality Assurance team on (03) 9269 0600 or by email at grants@vla.vic.gov.au.

If you have any questions about the changes please contact Family Violence Program Manager, Sharika Jeyakumar by email at sharika.jeyakumar@vla.vic.gov.au