Services where proceedings are in a different court jurisdiction

Section 30(2)

The Act provides that a person is entitled to apply for legal aid or advice through any law centre irrespective of his or her place of residence.

Law centres often receive applications for legal services where the applicant resides in the county in which the law centre is located, but they will be taking or defending proceedings at a District Court or Circuit Court venue in another county. The application should be processed and, if financially eligible, the person may be seen for a first and subsequent consultations up to the point of the hearing. At that point you should contact the law centre that is local to the venue – unless they are the solicitors for the other party or otherwise have a conflict of interest – and ask them to act on an agency basis for the purpose of the court hearing.

A law centre that is requested to provide an agency service must be fully briefed in relation to the case or cases that they are requested to provide agency services for.