Legal support

For 30 years, we have been delivering environmental justice for nature and the community, initially as a government funded community legal centre and now as a community-powered national organisation.

Our national organisation – Environmental Justice Australia – was formerly the Victorian Environment Defenders Office and provided legal advice and representation to hundreds of people and community groups in Victoria fighting for better protection of land, air, and water. We carry forward a proud legacy of working with the community to fight for environmental justice as we tackle the most pressing issues of our time.

That means we still provide vital legal support to the community – but we choose to work on issues and in areas where we can have the most impact. Rather than providing ad hoc legal support across a multitude of issues, we select the issues that can be amplified by our existing legal and advocacy work and where a positive outcome could see long-term and far-reaching outcomes, not just a one-off smaller scale win. We can also only take on matters where we have sufficient resources and it is within our area of expertise.

We prioritise acting for people who bear the brunt of environmental injustice:

• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people
• Disadvantaged people and communities
• People with a disability
• People who reside in regional or remote areas of Australia
• Young people 

We can act for individuals, community groups and non-profit groups on environmental protection and environmental justice matters that are of significant public interest.

We do not act for:

• Local councils, government departments and statutory authorities.
• For-profit businesses unless there is a sufficient public interest objective.
• Permit applicants, respondents to enforcement orders, or defendants to prosecutions for environmental offences or alleged contraventions of environmental laws.
• Other legal professionals in their capacity as legal professionals (unless they are a Community Legal Centre, another public interest legal organisation, or a lawyer representing a client in a matter within our priority areas).
• People in localised matters such as neighbor disputes and individual tree removal.
• Clients seeking individual compensation.

We receive a high volume of requests for support and have limited resources. Please consider whether your request meets the above criteria before getting in touch.