The Hume-Riverina Community Legal Service provides free face-to-face legal advice in Albury, Lavington, Corowa, Finley and Deniliquin.

However, if anticipated cuts from the NSW government go ahead, services to Corowa, Finley and Deniliquin will be on the chopping block from June next year.

At present, community legal centres are funded through the interest earned on solicitors’ trust accounts; but low interest rates have meant the public services fund has not been accumulating much money.

According to principal lawyer at the Hume-Riverina service Sarah Rodgers this is the only one of its kind for towns like Finley and Corowa, leaving those entire townships with limited to no access to a vital public service.

For many people, community legal services are the only way they can access legal advice and representation.

One of the bastions of our justice system is that everyone has a right to representation, to be heard and to defend themselves; if any funding cuts deny people this right, it is in fact an affront to the entire system.