Alternatives to Legal Solutions

The Role of Combined Services

Most people have some sort of legal need and experience numerous, complicated legal problems simultaneously. Such needs reflect a wide range of rights and obligations related to many areas of physical, emotional and social well-being, including health, welfare, housing, education, employment, debt, citizenship, family relationships and policing. Both legal and non-legal issues can reflect problems people face in our fragmented society, which can impact on more than one aspect of their lives. Moreover, complex problems are frequently not isolated, but can interact with, contribute to, and cause expansive and sometimes unrelenting legal and non-legal problems.

Non-Legal Support Services

“The nature of legal needs suggests that attempts by legal service providers to deal with each legal event in isolation, without regard to its full impact or to its interconnected legal and non-legal problems, may well result in an incomplete solution in some cases. Given the overlap of legal needs with other basic needs associated with physical and social well-being, a complete solution may not only require legal advice or assistance, but also broader non-legal support services, such as support through housing, financial counselling, social, welfare, family or health services, etc.”[1]

Coordinated Responses

Thus, in some instances, individuals who seek help for legal issues may benefit from coordinated responses to both their legal and non-legal needs. Some contend that those with complex or serious legal problems may require broader non-legal support to achieve effective solutions Homeless people, for example, may benefit from coordinated legal and non-legal support strategies given their tendency to experience multiple, compounding legal and social problems.

Additionally, it is recommended that people with pressing issues may well require non-legal support strategies to achieve complete solutions, given their vulnerability to wide-ranging problems and their inadequate abilities to resolve them. It has also been suggested that prevention, identification and resolution of legal problems be treated as both a public health and justice policy objectives.

We also believe that the disadvantaged may benefit from coordinated legal & non-legal support strategies given their elevated risk of long lasting legal problems, their increased tendency to leave their legal problems unaddressed, and, their vulnerability to multiple socioeconomic disadvantages. Therefore, on a case-by-case basis, we collaborate, coordinate and integrate legal and non-legal services, giving our clientele unprecedented advantages of collaboration and professional coordination of services.

Legal Outsourcing

Legal Outsourcing, also known as legal process outsourcing (LPO), refers to the practice of a law firm or corporation obtaining legal support services from an outside legal support services group. This service involves outsourcing any activity except those where personal presence or contact is required (i.e. appearances in court and/or face-to-face negotiations). The practice of outsourcing may also include agency work and other services requiring a physical presence. This process is one of the incidents of a larger movement towards outsourcing. The most commonly offered services have been agency work, document review, legal research and writing, drafting of pleadings & briefs, and patent services.

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[1] Coumarelos, C, Wei , Z & Zhou, AH 2006, Justice made to measure: NSW legal needs survey in disadvantaged areas, Law and Justice Foundation of NSW, Sydney