Get free legal advice

Let’s work together to defend wildlife, people and places.

If eligible, our lawyers can provide 15 minutes of free initial legal advice. Sometimes this initial service can progress to more detailed advice or legal representation.

“Our legal advice process” has more on:
– how we use the information we collect
– how the application process works

On this page:

    What you can and can’t get legal advice for

    We can provide legal advice for issues relating to:

    • Public interest planning
    • Environmental law
    • Criminal law matters relating to environmental protest

    These issues usually include:

    • Major development and infrastructure e.g. dams, roads, tunnels, large-scale developments
    • Mining, fracking and energy e.g. coal, coal seam gas and power stations
    • Land clearing and logging e.g. native vegetation clearing and forestry
    • Corporate and government conduct e.g. decision making, access to information
    • Irrigation and water use e.g. rivers, wetlands, drinking water
    • Environmental protest e.g. organising protests, police powers and arrest
    • Contamination of land and water e.g. PFAS, lead

    There are some issues that we can’t provide legal advice on. Such as:

    • Neighbourhood disputes (including tree and fence disputes)
    • Noise and odour pollution
    • Private development application queries
    • Aerial spraying of chemicals, baiting and pesticides

    Get online legal resources that may help

    What is our legal advice process?

    Our lawyers can provide 15 minutes of advice on planning and environmental law matters to people in all Australian States or Territories. If your concern relates to the Pacific Region, apply and we can refer you to one of our local partners there.

    We aim to respond to all applications within five (5) business days. If your application is more complex or there are many applications, our response might take longer. If there’s an urgent timeframe, include this in your application to us, but you may need private legal advice.

    Making an application for legal advice as soon as possible will help us respond to you in time. Any information shared in your application is:

    • Confidential
    • Required to understand your request
    • Used to determine if we can provide assistance
    • Required to check if we have a conflict of interest (have provided advice to another group or person on the same matter)

    The more detail you can provide in your application, the easier it will be for us to process and respond quickly.

    Please be aware that we are a small team and there’s high demand for our services so we may not be able to advise you. If we can’t advise you, we will do our best to provide you with information and/or refer you to someone who may assist with your concern. around certain environmental matters.

    1

    Complete your online application

    The application form collects all the information we need to understand if we can provide legal advice.
    2

    Your application is processed by our intake team

    First we do a conflict check, if we have no conflicts, we will assess whether we can advise you. Our national intake team will contact you, by phone or email, if we have more questions about your application.
    3

    You are contacted by one of our solicitors

    Once we have all the information we need, one of our solicitors will usually contact you within five business days. If you have told us there is a deadline, we will do our best to contact you ahead of that time, but be aware we may not be able to. The solicitor will provide you with free initial legal advice over the phone (up to 15 minutes). You can discuss next steps e.g. detailed written advice or potential litigation, with the solicitor also.

    Common legal advice requests

    • What is the planning process for different types of development?
    • How do I write a submission to the government?
    • Do I have appeal rights?
    • Can I represent myself in Court?
    • How can I access government information?
    • What can I do to protect Country and culture?
    • What do I need to know to organise a protest and protest safely?
    • How do I report illegal clearing of native vegetation?