About us
Fitzroy Legal Service
Fitzroy Legal Service is one of the oldest community legal centres in Australia, opening in 1972. Fitzroy Legal Service provides casework to clients in our catchment area and plays a significant role in the areas of law reform and community legal education, which is closely bound up with the practice of preventative law, demystification of the law, self-help and empowerment.
Fitzroy Legal Service also has a long history of running public interest cases. The experiences from the casework practice inform the law reform and community legal education activities of the organisation.
Visit our website at: www.fitzroy-legal.org.au for more information.
The Law Handbook
Originally conceived as an in-house guide for lawyers dealing with poverty law, The Law Handbook was first published by the Fitzroy Legal Service in 1977 as the Legal Resources Book. It was the first plain English guide to the law in Australia.
Produced on a shoestring budget, the publication has grown over the years to become a 1000-page book that is the most comprehensive do-it-yourself guide to the law in Victoria.
From its humble beginnings the Fitzroy Legal Service is very proud to now publish The Law Handbook on the internet – free for all Victorians. The Law Handbook Online is a comprehensive, plain English, web-based legal resource.
Some of the features of the Law Handbook Online are:
- its handy search function;
- the thorough legislation and case indexes that are cross-referenced and linked to the content;
- its database of addresses and contact details to relevant legal and non-legal services, many of which contain maps and links to websites;
- its helpful pop-up definitions of legal terms combined with an extensive glossary;
- pop-up boxes advising of the latest law changes and updates; and
- useful cross-references are included throughout the text enabling the reader to link immediately to other relevant parts of the Law Handbook Online.
Acknowledgements
Publishing the Law Handbook Online as a free service would not be possible without the generosity and assistance of a major grant from the Legal Services Board.
We particularly wish to thank the 70 plus contributors who volunteer their time and expertise each year to The Law Handbook :
The Law Handbook — contributors to the 2010 edition
We also thank Victoria Legal Aid and their “legal guru” Helen Askew for providing access to their legal resources, which were of great assistance.
Free access to the Law Handbook Online continues the commitment of the Fitzroy Legal Service to provide relevant, accessible legal advice, assistance and information to the community.