Legal Centre gets bigger

The Inner City Legal Centre will celebrate its move from Oxford St to new, larger surroundings in Kings Cross today, Thursday 17 July.
After 25 years of providing free legal services to Darlinghurst’s disadvantaged and the gay and lesbian community, the centre has moved to a larger space on Darlinghurst Rd, enabling them to offer even more extensive services, including a future legal information session for the GLBT community.
In light of the recent amendments to state and federal laws in the area of same-sex entitlements, the centre anticipates an influx in requests for advice on family law and the nature of benefits now afforded to same-sex couples.
There’ve been a lot of reforms over the past 12 months or even less, and a lot of discussion around it as well, so I think it’s a pretty exciting time for people who have been facing discrimination or struggling with this stuff for a while. Now all of a sudden the law has changed, it’s going to make it a lot easier once they are aware of what they are entitled to, centre solicitor Yasmin Hunter said. So I think it’s great. I shouldn’t say that we welcome new clients, but it is good.
Another solicitor at the centre, Deborah Henwood, said the new centre would provide more than adequate space for any such rise in demand.
The new offices are bigger. We used to be in really tiny premises. We’re now in an enormous space which will be available to student volunteer solicitors and contract workers to come in and assist us so we can do some more casework, she said.
info: The Inner City Legal Centre is now located at 50-52 Darlinghurst Rd, Kings Cross. They run a GLBT advice service on Wednesday nights, which is free but requires an appointment. Phone: 9332 1966.