The Challenge of Defining Unmet Legal Need

Abstract

Research on unmet legal need in Australia is long overdue and this delay has been articulated in many spheres. Although there was significant work done on defining and studying the problems of access to justice in the 1970s and early 1980s, there has been little academic work done since.In June 1998, the Australian Senate Legal and Constitutional References Committee noted that there were inadequate data on the "unmet need" for legal aid.The same committee reported in 2004 that there had been no progress and restated the urgent need for reliable data on which to base government decisions. A number of other Australian organisations have acknowledged that research into unmet legal need should be undertaken as a matter of urgency. They include the Victorian Parliamentary Law Reform Committee, National Legal Aid,and the Law Council of Australia.