The ANUSA Legal Service is a dedicated service providing legal services to ANU students and ANU student clubs and societies. Our legal services are provided by qualified lawyers or paralegals working under lawyer supervision.

Areas of Legal Advice

We provide legal services in areas such as:

• Tenancy agreements and disputes with landlords
• Rights under occupancy agreements (e.g. on campus accommodation) and dispute resolution mechanisms
• Assistance with visa related questions
• Advice on migration law
• Discrimination law
• Employment related disputes
• Intellectual property (including assignment agreements and IP licenses)
• Contracts and early stage commercial ventures
• Online harassment
• Sexual harassment and sexual assault
• Insurance claims
• Defamation
• Motor vehicle accidents
• Freedom of information and privacy
• Responding to legal threats.

How we can help

Legal advice is our primary service. Our legal advice is focussed on understanding your goals and needs and providing you with the information and knowledge you need to design and implement a strategy or options to address a legal problem you have experienced. Unless otherwise agreed with our lawyers, the legal service is limited to legal advice provision. Normally advice is provided in one legal advice session, but students are generally welcome to book in for another appointment if needed.

Our lawyers may reach agreement with you to provide additional services such as:

• Case work services (e.g. writing a letter on your behalf or negotiating with another party to assist you in resolving a legal dispute)
• Document review (e.g. review of draft applications or draft contracts you provide to us)
• Representational services (acting on your behalf in a legal dispute).

Due to resource constraints, we are often not in a position to provide such services.

Where additional services are agreed this will be stated during your legal appointment or through a separate legal services agreement with you.

Areas We Can’t Help With

We cannot assist with issues relating to family law, wills and probate, transactions for the sale or purchase of land and some other issues where we do not have expertise. Our lawyers or staff will let you know if we can’t assist.

Referral Support

If we cannot help you with your legal issue because of its nature or urgency, we will seek to assist you by providing you with referral information to a service or legal provider who may be able to help you.

What to Expect in a Legal Appointment

When you see our lawyers you will be able to share your legal problem and they will advise you on the basis of the information you provide them and documents reviewed during the appointment. We offer both face-to-face and online appointments.

Our lawyers will be kind and courteous to you and treat you with dignity.

Any information you provide to us will be treated as confidential in accordance with regulation of the legal profession and will only be disclosed with your explicit consent.

Where we agree to provide you with an ongoing legal service, you can expect us to be in touch from time to time about your matter.

We may not be able to provide you with further legal advice, if we have previously advised you and you have not acted on that advice.

Where we have referred you to another provider, we will generally not be able to provide further advice to you on that same issue.

What we Expect from You

• That you behave courteously towards lawyers and staff assisting with your legal enquiry and while interacting with our Legal Service.
• That you contact us and let us know as soon as possible if you will be unable to attend your legal appointment.
• That you provide us with information that is relevant to your legal query.
• That you attend an appointment that has been scheduled for you, or you advise us as soon as possible, if you will be unable to attend, by contacting us, or by cancelling the appointment.

Bringing a Support Person or Asking for Other Help

You are welcome to bring a support person to your legal appointment, if you would be more comfortable bringing one. You may also request other kinds of support, if you may need it (e.g. because of disability or language needs). Just let our administrative staff know. We will assist where we can.

Interpreter Support

Where requested by you, we will seek to arrange an interpreter to be present to assist with communication during an appointment. However, we cannot guarantee that an interpreter will be present.

Vision, Aims and Values

i. Our vision is to support ANU students navigate legal issues and to support students in protecting their legal rights.

ii. The mission of the ANUSA Legal Service is to provide free, accessible legal services to our student clients, and to ANU student clubs and societies.

iii. The Service will, within its available resources, offer legal education in key areas of relevance to ANU students by delivering community legal education sessions.

iv. It will seek to be accessible for our student clients irrespective of background, and respectful and appropriate considering the diversity of the student body: including students represented by the ANUSA Departments.

v. The values of the ANUSA Legal Service include those embodied in the ANUSA Code of Conduct and ANUSA Legal Service Code of Conduct.

vi. Values related specifically to our provision of legal services include:

• Accessible student focussed service
• Empowerment and agency of our clients
• Promotion of just outcomes for ANU student
• Professional and ethical service provision
• Orientation to learning and continuous improvement
• Welcoming feedback to help us improve our service.

Access to the Law is Everyone’s Right

The ANUSA Legal Service provides support to a diversity of ANU students, including students represented by the ANUSA Departments and support groups: including the BIPOC, Disabilities, Indigenous, International Students, Mature Age Students, Queer* and Women’s Departments and students with family responsibilities.

The ANUSA Legal Service supports undergraduate, postgraduate coursework and higher degree research students. 

Whatever your background, you are welcome to seek legal advice and legal support.

Records About Your Matter

As part of providing you with a legal service, we create a confidential electronic legal file about your matter (and sometimes a physical file). We may destroy such files after seven years, as provided for by the law.

AI Use

The ANUSA Legal Service uses AI tools (artificial intelligence) to assist with legal research and enhance our legal services. We do not provide any client data to any AI service that we use. All our legal advice is provided by ANUSA lawyers.

Complaints and Feedback

We welcome your feedback and our lawyers will send you a request for feedback on our services after your initial appointment. Where we have agreed to provide you with additional services we may seek your feedback after those service have ended.

If you have a complaint or feedback about our service you can:

• Contact the lawyer helping you and discuss your complaint to see if it can be resolved.
• If you cannot resolve the issue with the lawyer, or you do not wish to do so you can submit a written complaint through our feedback page on the ANUSA website at: Feedback (anusa.com.au). Complaints will be handled by the ANUSA General Manager and treated as confidential by ANUSA.
• Another option available to you is to raise your complaint with the Law Society of the ACT at the following link: Law Society of the Australian Capital Territory – Making a complaint (actlawsociety.asn.au) A complaint to the Law Society must be about professional misconduct or unsatisfactory professional conduct as defined in the Legal Profession Act 2006.

Last updated: 25 November 2025