Community legal service

Last night was my third time to volunteer for the Fitzory Legal Service (FLS). I had a chance to do works at the back instead of working at the front desk. Basically, I had to pre-interview with the “client”, dropped down their case(s), then briefed it to the solicitors at the back and got one who had expertise in the area the matter related to. The first pre-interview case I had was shocking. It was a woman who was tortured by her husband for six hours, leaving her face misplaced. Her husband did not have any conviction and was obviously not charged. She was a single mother with two lovely girls, unemployed, and trying to find justice for her case and seeking compensation for a surgery to fix her face. She could not stop crying when she was telling me her story. Her elder daughter once said: “Mum, you had blood here (eye-brow), here and here.” She used her little finger pointing at her mum’s face. After hearing our (another law student volunteer and me) briefing, Michael (a senior solicitor) came in. The style he made me admire of him was, instead of hearing she waffled the whole story again, he went straight into the point and gave her suggestions ways she could do find justice for herself.

One after another, we had ten clients for the night. Every one of them walked out with great gratitude and thanked us again and again. This kind of satisfaction can not be substituted with a million dollar.

At the end of the night, those solicitors and law students were talking about the structure and subject taught in their law degree. They said commercial law had been pushed up quite a lot as opposed to criminal law in Melbourne law school in the recent years. They thought that as people become more and more money oriented and want to get into the corporate world in any possible way. However, the commercial world is about big fish eats small fish in general. You are using your brain to cumulate your wealth; you are taking away from others rather than giving. I would find it distress.