Not sure if you’re eligible for legal aid in NSW? Find out here.

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If you live in NSW and are facing a legal issue, you may be eligible for legal aid. Legal aid helps low-income individuals access the legal system by providing financial assistance and advice. This blog post from expert criminal lawyers Sydney discusses how to determine if you are eligible for legal aid in NSW.

First, What is Legal Aid?

Legal aid is a service that provides legal assistance to those who may not be able to afford it otherwise. Legal aid helps people to understand and protect their legal rights, and access the courts or other forms of dispute resolution.

Eligibility for Legal Aid:

According to the criminal lawyers Sydney, the following tests are conducted to determine your eligibility for legal aid.

  • Means Test:

The means test is used to determine if an individual is eligible for legal aid. The Means Test assesses your financial resources to decide whether or not you can access financial help for legal costs.

To qualify for legal aid, your annual income and assets must be below a certain threshold. The thresholds are calculated by taking into account the number of people in your household, your current financial situation and other expenses you may have such as housing and medical costs.

  • Unpaid Contributions Test:

The unpaid contributions test looks at your financial situation and the amount of unpaid contributions you have made in the past year. This test will examine if there’s any unpaid contributions that you have made to legal aid services in the past. The test also includes an examination of any liabilities that you may have.

If the client has not paid a contribution previously, they won’t be eligible for legal aid when they apply for it again. As per the top criminal law firms Sydney, the purpose of this test is to encourage applicants to pay the contributions without fail.

  • Merit Test:

This test looks at your individual circumstances, including your legal issue and the prospects of success in resolving it.

In order to be eligible for assistance, your legal issue must have enough merit for a legal practitioner to take it on. Legal Aid NSW will consider all relevant factors when determining the merit of a case, including the strength of any evidence, the complexity of the legal issue and the prospects of success.

If your issue does not meet the Merit Test, then you may be denied legal aid. If you are denied legal aid, you can seek further advice from other legal professionals such as criminal defence lawyers Sydney.

Wrapping Up: Legal aid can help cover the cost of legal advice, representation, and other services. It is highly recommended that you contact a reputable law firm before you proceed with the application for legal aid. The lawyers will represent you and assist you with the application process.

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