Australia has no current national picture of legal need.
We do not know how often Australians experience civil legal problems, which communities are most affected, or whether people are getting help when they need it. That gap matters, because unmet legal need does not stay contained: a tenancy dispute becomes homelessness, a debt becomes financial crisis, a family conflict becomes court proceedings. Understanding the scale and shape of legal need is the necessary first step. LAW+ is how we get there.
This year, the Law and Justice Foundation of NSW will help fill this gap in evidence by conducting LAW+: the Legal need Australia Wide Survey. Data collection begins in July 2026, with preliminary findings expected by mid-2027.
Building on what we know
LAW+ will collect data from a representative sample of 20,000 people across Australia. This type of general population legal needs survey is one of the only ways to gather reliable data on the breadth of legal problems experienced across diverse population groups, including people who may not recognise their problem as a legal one. This will be the largest legal needs survey conducted in this country since the Foundation’s 2008 LAW Survey. Much has changed since that time. COVID-19, the NDIS, major tribunal reforms, and financial products like buy now pay later have all reshaped how Australians interact with legal and government systems. Technology has transformed how people find legal information and created new categories of legal need. LAW+ will capture all of this. It asks people whether they have experienced a legal problem in the past two years, what they did about it, whether they got help, and what happened.
LAW+ will use innovative and accessible data collection methods to reach people via mail, online and in-person, across all parts of the country.
What we are setting out to learn
LAW+ is designed to help answer questions that matter for how legal assistance is designed, funded, and delivered across Australia. When Australians experience a civil legal problem, do they seek help? Can they access it? Which communities face the greatest concentration of legal problems? And have those patterns shifted? The findings will be used by policymakers, legal service providers, funding bodies, and community organisations to understand what kind of legal help is needed, by whom, and where services need to reach further.
By Dr Kate Davies, Research Director, Law and Justice Foundation of NSW
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