Pro bono lawyer agreement and Secondment to Justice Connect
Updated 31 May 2024
Thank you for participating in Justice Connect Answers (JCA.
JCA is an online legal advice services platform that provides free, discreet civil law legal advice to qualifying users. Help-seekers submit their legal queries to a question board where participating lawyers from Justice Connect member firms select questions to answer and provide tailored and specific legal advice directly to help-seekers via the platform.
Secondment
Justice Connect member firms may choose to offer JCA through their pro bono practice. Under the arrangement between Justice Connect and participating member firms, once registered to the JCA platform, each JCA participating lawyer is seconded to Justice Connect in respect of JCA work. This means that, when working on JCA matters, you will be acting as a Justice Connect secondee.
The terms of your secondment to Justice Connect are as follows.
Salary and other entitlements
Although you will be a Justice Connect secondee when conducting JCA matters, you will not be an employee of Justice Connect; you will at all times remain an employee of your firm.
Your firm will continue to pay your salary and you will continue to accrue superannuation and leave entitlements as a law firm employee.
Insurance
When providing advice to a help-seeker in connection with JCA, you will be covered by Justice Connect’s professional indemnity insurance. Your firm’s other insurances will continue to apply to you including workers compensation and public liability insurance.
If you become aware of a claim or potential claim arising in respect of a JCA help-seeker file, you must alert the Justice Connect Manager of Public Interest Law as soon as possible.
Justice Connect policies and requirements
You should review all training materials, and attend any training sessions reasonably required by Justice Connect, in relation to JCA.
You must:
- be authorised to give pro bono legal advice, including holding all necessary professional qualifications and a current practicing certificate in order to provide legal advice. Eligible lawyers will be authorised to use the system and to respond to help-seeker requests by Justice Connect
- abide by Justice Connect’s JCA policies and procedures while undertaking JCA work, including the JCA Conflict of Interest and Information Barrier Policy
- identify yourself as a Justice Connect secondee lawyer in all JCA correspondence, but you have no obligation to include your own name
- keep JCA files up to date and record all information necessary to understand what is happening on your files, so that Justice Connect staff lawyers, Responsible Persons and Nominated Persons can review files
- take a best practice approach to drafting written advice when delivering advice on JCA, including ensuring that advices are drafted clearly, concisely, in plain language and are sufficiently detailed. Where relevant, you must advise the help-seeker of the existence of any relevant limitation period(s) and when it expires
- answer according to the law of the jurisdiction in which the legal problem is located, and in which you practice, or have expertise
You should endeavour to ensure that any firm administrative staff working with you in respect of Justice Connect JCA matters abide by the terms of this document, as applicable.
It is Justice Connect and your firm’s policy that you treat JCA help-seekers in the same way you are required to treat other firm clients. This applies not only to the quality of the advice you provide, but also to the priority you give to JCA files once you agree to answer a question posted on JCA.
Law graduates
Law graduates must review all training materials in relation to JCA. Law graduates must not log onto the platform directly. Law graduates may work on JCA matters outside the platform subject to adequate supervision by a JCA Lawyer and compliance with JCA policies and procedures, including in relation to the JCA Conflict of Interest and Information Barrier Policy.
Other matters
Your secondment is ongoing, subject to continuation of your firm’s involvement in JCA and your desire to remain a participant in that program.
If you have any concerns or complaints regarding your secondment, you should raise them with your firm’s pro bono coordinator or, if that is not appropriate, with the Justice Connect Manager of Public Interest Law.
Responding to help-seekers on Justice Connect Answers - scope of service
After eligibility is established, via the JCA platform, the JCA help-seeker will create a secured account.
The help-seeker will post a request for legal advice/information and provide facts that will help you answer the question. Help-seekers will be able to go back to their posted question to add information. You may ask for additional information before responding to the help-seeker's request. The help-seeker will have a choice to respond to that request or not.
You will only answer questions you choose to answer. If a Justice Connect secondee does not respond to a request after 30+ days, the request will be removed and an administrator will notify the help-seeker. If a Justice Connect secondee responds to a help-seeker's question, the help-seeker will see the written response through the website.
Help-seekers will not know the full name of the Justice Connect secondee who answers their questions unless a help-seeker has made a specific request for the name of the Lawyer who replied to their question in connection to a potential claim, or it is required by a court of law. You may choose to provide your first name but will otherwise identify yourself as a Justice Connect secondee lawyer.
The lawyer/client relationship between you and the help-seeker will be limited in scope only to providing an answer through the JCA website to the legal question and will not involve any continuing representation of the help-seeker beyond the act of providing such an answer. You will provide short-term, limited legal services to a help-seeker without expectation by either you or the help-seeker that you will provide continuing representation in the matter. Should the help-seeker have a concern about the lawyer's assistance, they will be permitted to contact the site administrator. This lawyer/client relationship ends after you have completed providing the short-term limited legal services to the help-seeker through the website.
You will not take any action to help the help-seeker except to respond through the website to the request for advice and information that is posted on the website. You will not:
- call help-seekers, make calls for help-seekers or go to meetings for help-seekers
- go to court for help-seekers
- write letters for help-seekers
- sign or file documents for help-seekers
- do any other work for help-seekers outside this website.
If you believe the help-seeker may require additional assistance outside of JCA, please indicate this to Justice Connect via the JCA platform.
Privacy Policy/Confidentiality Statement
JCA is designed to provide user privacy.
Information posted on the JCA website will be subject to Justice Connect’s Privacy Policy and Disclaimer.
Help-seeker legal questions and the responses of the secondee lawyers participating in JCA may be maintained for review in order to measure the effectiveness of the project, ensure compliance with professional obligations, for research purposes and for other legitimate business reasons. Steps will be taken to maintain the security of this database and the website and it will only be utilised by the entities administering the site and those entities working with it to manage and improve the site, but an absolute guarantee of security is not possible when using the internet and internet-based systems. Information collected on this website may be destroyed after seven years.
Please click "I Agree" below to confirm your acceptance of this agreement.
Thank you once again for participating in JCA.
