The RLC is housed on the ground floor of the Redfern Town Hall

History

Redfern Legal Centre (RLC), established in 1977, was the first community legal centre in NSW and the second in Australia. RLC was established by lawyers, law students and academics, social workers and community activists outraged at the injustice created by the lack of affordable legal services for disadvantaged and marginalised people. RLC opened with one paid staff member, barely any money, and lots of volunteers with expertise, enthusiasm, passion, commitment and a vision.

Mission and Objectives

• Being a leader in providing quality legal services to the community
• Having specialist skills in the areas of domestic violence, credit, debt and & consumer law, tenancy, employment, discrimination, and complaints about police and other government agencies.
• Identifying inequalities in the laws, legal system, administration practices and society as a whole that affect RLC's clients and disadvantaged people generally, and to work for social and legal change to remove these defects and inequalities.
• Promoting and providing community legal education.  

RLC gratefully acknowledges the assistance of:

• Legal Aid NSW
• NSW Department of Human Services
• Fair Trading NSW
• NSW Department of Justice and Attorney-General
• NSW Department of Premier and Cabinet, Office for Women
• Commonwealth Attorney General’s Department
• Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs
• City of Sydney
• The Law and Justice Foundation of NSW
• Thomson Reuters
• Microsoft
• and all our volunteers

RLC values its ongoing pro bono relationships with the following firms:

• Artemis Legal
• Ashurst (formerly known as Blake Dawson Waldron)
• Clayton Utz
• Corrs Chambers Westgarth
• DLA Piper
• Fragomen
• Gilbert & Tobin
• Henry Davis York
• Lander & Rogers
• Mallesons Stephen Jacques
• Slater & Gordon
• Watts McCray