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 agreement and IP licences)
  • 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 strategy 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 your clients are generally welcome to book in for further advice 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 of draft contracts you provide to us)
• Representational services (i.e. acting on your behalf in a legal dispute).

Due to resource constraints we are not always in a position to provide such services. Where additional services are agreed this will be stated during your legal appointment.

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. Our lawyers or staff will let you know if we cannot 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 the documents reviewed during the appointment. Generally our appointments are held online. However, you can request a face to face appointment.

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.

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.

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.

Vision, Aims and Values

1. Our vision is to support ANU students navigate legal issues and to support students in protecting their legal rights.
2. 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.
3. The Service will, within its available resources, offer legal education in key areas of relevance to ANU students by delivering community legal education sessions.
4. It will seek to be accessible for our student clients irrespective of background, and respectful and appropriate taking into account the diversity of the student body: including students represented by the ANUSA departments.
5. The values of the ANUSA Legal Service include those embodied in the ANUSA Code of Conduct.
6. 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 students
• Professional and ethical service provision
• Orientation to learning and continuous improvement
• Welcoming feedback to help us improve our service.

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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.

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 by the law.

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 services 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
    • If you cannot resolve the issue with the lawyer, or 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 Operations 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: 21 December 2023