This book provides a comprehensive account of the modern Australian legal aid system. It charts the twists and turns of policy and practice over the past 30 years with a particular focus on:

• the reaction of the legal profession to conflicts and debates about legal aid policy and services and the way in which this has both reflected and accentuated major shifts in the social and political structure of the profession itself;
• the development of community legal centres from radical fringe organisations to accepted legal practices which provide a "value for money" service and work in alliance with the big city firms;
• the constancy of government calls for fiscal restraint and the recurrent lack of clear objectives despite widely varying approaches by different administrations.

Co-published by the Victoria Law Foundation.

Table of Contents

Foreword - Justice Chris Maxwell, President of teh Victorian Court of Appeal
Preface
List of Acronyms
List of Interviewees
Introduction

PART ONE: PROFESSIONAL CONFLICT AND WELFARISM
Overview
CHAPTER 1: Legal needs and the origins of contemporary legal aid
CHAPTER 2: The Whitlam years: Public aid and social democratic vision
CHAPTER 3: Professional reactions, mobilisation and division
CHAPTER 4: Fraserism, conflict and State commissions

PART TWO: PROFESSIONAL CHANGE, NEO-LIBERALISM AND THE STATE
Overview
CHAPTER 5: Growth, consolidation and crisis
CHAPTER 6: From providers to purchasers and suppliers
CHAPTER 7: Community legal centres: Autonomous and alternative

CONCLUSION: Professionalism and Australian legal aid in retrospect
Index

From the Foreword: "This book is a timely reminder that access to justice is, first and last, a matter of human rights. Without accessible legal aid, the legal system founders and the rule of law loses its meaning."

- Justice Chris Maxwell, President, Victorian Court of Appeal