Legal services
NAAJA is funded to provide criminal and civil law services to Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory.
We deliver free legal advice, representation, and information to many Aboriginal people each year across all towns and communities in the Northern Territory.
We have the largest private legal practice in the Northern Territory with offices in Darwin, Katherine, Tennant Creek, and Alice Springs. We also attend all bush circuit courts to provide advice and represent Aboriginal people.
Our criminal law division comprises dedicated and professional staff who specialise in criminal law.
Our civil law division deals with claims relating to compensation, discrimination, family law, housing matters, complaints against police or other government organisations, adult guardianship and child protection.
I need to speak to:
To ensure that our services are directed towards applicants in greatest need of assistance, applications for Aboriginal casework are subject to a means test.
Do I qualify for NAAJA’s legal aid services?
An applicant automatically satisfies the means test if:
- they are under the age of 18
- their main source of income comes from Centrelink benefits
- their gross personal income is less than $46,000 per annum ($885 per week).
Note: means testing only applies to casework matters.
Important note about NAAJA’s information barrier
What is an information barrier?
Information barriers (Chinese walls) are established organisational arrangements that are designed to prevent the flow of information between separate departments.
They are used by legal practices to rebut the presumption of imputed knowledge.
The current practice of NAAJA is that the information barrier enables the practice to act against current and former clients, as long as the conflict is only between the civil and the criminal sections.
This means that the information barrier (assuming it is effective) protects us against conflicts arising from the civil and criminal sections acting for and against the same client, for example where a defendant is prosecuted for assault and the civil section is assisting the alleged victim of the assault in family law proceedings against the defendant.
However, it does not protect the civil and criminal sections from conflicts that arise within their own section.